
Class :a-V4-'^ic 



Book 



Copightli". 



COEVRICHT DEPOSm 




tr^ilLJ, \AMS^, 



ADDRESSES 



TO 



YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN 

DELIVERED TO THE 

ST, PAULS CONGREGATION 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
BY 

REV, N. J. LOHRE, B. L. 

ON 

The Bible 

The Bible as Unbelievers really see it 
The Bible as the Believers see it 
The Sunday Question 
Some Economic Factors of a Young Ma7i s Life 
The Young Man and Social Life 

The Young Man and Religious Life 
The Young Lady 

Ihe Young Lady and the Home 

The Education of the You7ig Lady 




MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
1902 



Copyright, 1902, by 
REV. N. J. LOHRE, b. l. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two C0HE8 Recciveo 

MAY. 31 1902 

COPYRtOHT ENTRY 

CLASS <^XXa No. 
COPY B. 







PRESS OF THE UNGOOMMENS VEN. 

7 



IN MEMORY i 

OF MY 

DEPARTED MOTHER 

WHOSE LOVE HAS BEEN AN INSPIRATION 
TO MY LIFE 

THIS LITTLE BOOK 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO THE 

YOUNG PEOPLE 

OF MY 

PARISH. 



FOREWORD, 

This little book contains a series of addresses 
recently given before the young people of my 
church. It is my first attempt to put before the public 
anything in the form of a book. The lectures herein 
contained were given with the sincere hope that they 
might do my young people good, and, to judge from 
the many expressions of thanks that I have received, 
I am lead to conclude that my effort has not been en- 
tirely in vain. When, at the request of many, I ven- 
ture to put them before the public in book form, it 
is with the hope, that they may do some good to the 
person into whose hands it may fall. 

I do not claim for this book any literary 
merit. The lectures have all been worked out dur- 
ing the busy hours of a pastor's life, and as such they 
are not what they might have been, had I had more 
time to review and re-write them. 

In preparing these addresses, I have consulted 
many books and publications, of which a partial list is 
found in the appended bibliography. In gathering 
these citations, through a period of many years, I 
have not always retained a record of the sources ; and 
it so happens that I have quite freely made use of 
other men's thoughts, and even words, without giving 
the credit I otherwise gladly would have given. Thus 
the addresses contain many quotations that have been 
gathered from different sources. At many places they 

(5) 



f. Foreword. 

are somewhat in the nature of a piece-quilt with fa- 
brics of many sorts, or of a bouquet with flowers 
from many gardens. When I began their deHvery, 
I had no thought of pubhshing them. This was not 
conceived until very recently. As I wrote down the 
quotations for delivery, I many times neglected to 
insert the customary marks, as these marks on the 
paper would be of no value to the hearer. 

A word as to the plan of part II and III might not 
be out of place. It was my purpose to speak to the 
young people of life under the following phases : Pri- 
vate, Home, Social, Religious, Economic, and Educa- 
tional. Each of these subjects might well have been 
treated separately : once for the Young Man and once 
for the Young Lady. But in doing so, it would have 
been hard to avoid repetition. If that coud have been 
avoided and tolerated, the volume would thereby be- 
come too large. I therefore chose to consider each 
phase from that side of sex which yields the best op- 
portunity for consideration. There is, as we all know, 
a close interrelation between the feminine and mas- 
culine members of the human family, so that what ap- 
plies to the one part, to some extent at least applies 
also to the other. 

Thus I am sustained in saying to all young peo- 
ple, male or female : To know what the author has 
said to you on "Personal Life," read the lecture on 
"The Young Lady" and part of the lecture on "The 
Young Man and Religious Life." To know what he 
has said on "Home Life," read "The Young Lady and 
the Home ;" to know what he has said on "Social 



Foreword. 7 

Life/* read "The Young Man and Social Life ;" to 
know what he has said of Prudence and Economy, 
read "Some Economic Factors of a Young Man's 
Life;" to know what he has said as to "ReHgion," 
read the first four lectures and that on "The Young 
Man and Religious Life ;" to know what he has said 
on "Education," read "The Education of the Young 
Lady" and "The Young Lady and the Home." 

I take pleasure in expressing my sincerest thanks 
to the members of my parish, who by their kind sug- 
gestions have encouraged me in the work, and especi- 
ally to Prof. J. Edward Rostad, for the kind assistance 
that he has given me in editing this book. 

In the name of God, go forth, little book! It is 
my hope and earnest prayer that you may accomplish 
some good in your mission among the young people. 

This book is dedicated to the young people that 
are dearest to me — those among whom it has been 
my pleasant privilege as a youth myself to spend four 
happy years in the ministry of the Gospel, May it be 
the means to help you shun the evil and to spur you 
on to that which is good. In all your doing, let 
Christ be the centre of attraction, and let heaven be 
your destination. 

Minneapolis, Minn., March, 1902. 

Affectionately Yours, 




MY MOtHER'S BIBLE. 

This book is all that's left me now, — 

Tears will unbidden start, — 
With faltering lip and throbbing brow 

I press it to my heart. 
For many generations past 

Here is our family tree; 
My mother's hands this Bible clasped. 

She, dying, gave it me. 

Ah! well do I remember those 

Whose names these records bear; 
Who round the hearth-stone used to close, 

After the evening prayer, 
And speak of what these pages said 

In tones my heart would thrill! 
Though they are with the silent dead. 

Here are they living still! 

My father read this holy book 

To brothers, sisters, dear; 
How calm was my poor mother's look, 

Who loved God's word to hear? 
Her angel face, — I see it yet! 

What thronging memories come! 
Again that little group is met 

Within the walls of home! 

Thou truest friend man ever knew, 

Thy constancy I've tried; 
When all were false, I found thee true, 

My counselor and guide. 
The mines of earth no treasures give 

That could this volume buy; 
In teaching me the way to live, 

It taught me how to die. 

George P. Morris. 
(8) 



THE BIBLE, 



Note.— The sentences, especially in the first part of this lecture, are 
Somewhat disconnected as they are complete quotations from the sources 
referred to at the end of this lecture. These quotations have been joined 
together without any interpolations. 




noble book ! All men's book. It is our 
first statement of the never-ending problem 
of man's destiny and God's way with men 
on earth, (i) From the time that at my 
mother's feet, or on my father's knee, I first 
learned to lisp verses from the sacred 
writings, they have been my daily study 
and vigilant contemplation. If there be 
anything in my style or thoughts to be 
commended, the credit is due to my 
kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love 
of the Scriptures. (2) The Bible is the book of 
life^ written for the instruction and edification of all 
ages and nations. No man who has felt its divine 
beauty and power would exchange this one volume 
for all the literature of the world. (3) The Bible 
is the best book in the world. It contains more of 
my little philosophy than all the libraries that I have 
seen. (4) To the Bible men will turn because they 
cannot do without it. Because happiness is our be- 
ing's end and aim, and happiness belongs to right- 
eousness, and righteousness is revealed in the Bible. 



10 What Great Men say of the Bible* 

For this simple reason men will turn to the Bible, 
just as men who tried to give up food, thinking that 
it was a vain thing, and that they could do without 
it, would return to food; or a man who tried to give 
up sleep, thinking it was a vain thing and he could 
do without it, would turn to sleep. (5) I do not be- 
lieve that human society, including not merely a few 
persons in any state, but whole masses of men, ever 
has attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intel- 
ligence, virtue, security, liberty or happiness without 
the Holy Scriptures. (6) 

I have read the Bible morning, noon and night, 
and have ever since been the happier and better man 
for such reading. (7) We are persuaded that there 
is no book, by the perusal of which the mind is so 
much strengthened and so much enlarged as it is by 
the perusal of the Bible. (8) It would not be worth 
while to live if we were to die entirely. That which 
alleviates and sanctifies toil is, to have before us the 
vision of a better world through the darkness of this 
life. That world is to me more real than the chimera 
which we devour and which we call life. It is for- 
ever before my eyes. It is the supreme consolation 
of my soul. (9) 

For more than a thousand years, the Bible, col- 
lectively taken, has gone hand in hand with civiliza- 
tion, science, law ; in short, with moral and intellec- 
tual cultivation ; always supporting, and often lead- 
ing the way. Good and holy men, and the best and 
wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits of history, have 
borne witness to its influence, and have declared it 



What Great Me7t say of the Bible. 11 

to be, beyond compare, the most perfect instrument 
of humanity. (lo) 

The Bible of the Christian is, without exception, 
the most remarkable work now in existence. In the 
libraries of the learned are frequently seen books of 
an extraordinary antiquity, and curious and interest- 
ing from the nature of their contents ; but none ap- 
proach the Bible in its complete sense, in point of 
age, while certainly no production whatever has any 
pretensions to rival it in dignity of composition or 
the important nature of the subject treated of in its 
pages, (ii) I have carefully and regularly per- 
used the Holy Scriptures, and am of the opinion that 
the volume, independently of its divine origin, con- 
tains more sublimity, purer morality, more important 
history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, 
than could be collected within the same compass from 
all other books, that were ever composed in any 
age or in any idiom. (12) For a wonder, gentlemen, 
for a wonder, I know nobody, either in France or 
anywhere else, who could write and speak with more 
art and talent. I defy you all — as many as are here 
— to prepare a tale so simple, and at the same time so 
sublime and so touching, as the tale of the passion 
and death of Jesus Christ ; which produces the same 
effect, which makes a sensation so strong and as gen- 
erally felt, and whose influence will be the same, 
after so many centuries. (13) 

The Bible is not the work of man alone. God is 
the effectual or principal cause, and man is only the 
instrumental cause of the Bible. In II Tim. 3 : 16, 



12 Ins'pi7'atio7t of the Scri;l}ture. 

we read according to the best English versions: 
''Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable 
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion, which is in righteousness." Those inspired 
Scriptures Paul denominates in the preceding verse 
as the "Sacred writings which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus 
Christ." They were "divinely inspired not only when 
it was written by God, who breathed into the writers, 
but also whenever it is read, by God breathing into 
the Scriptures, and the Scriptures breathing forth 
Him." Origen says that the "Holy volumes breathe 
the fulness of the Spirit." We do not with the Bux- 
dorfs maintain that even the vowel points of the He- 
brew text are inspired. The fallacy of this doctrine 
is ver^ manifest. How can the vowel points be in- 
spired when they were added a long time after the 
authors of the different books were dead? Or, shall 
we suppose a two-fold inspiration — one for the auth- 
ors and one for the massoretes? If it were true that 
the letters are inspired, the only inspired Old Testa- 
ment would be that in the original tongue. If a literal 
inspiration were necessary for the Church, we should 
expect that God would have provided for the error- 
less preservation of the original text. Moreover, the 
great mass of Christians have to depend upon 
vernacular translations, for none of which infallible 
accuracy is claimed. 

The old dogmatists clung to the literal inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures. The confessions emphasized 
the supreme authortiy of Scripture, but did not in- 



The Bible IS the Word of God. 13 

vestigate the nature of the inspiration. That has be- 
come a subject of research for a more modern time. 

]\Iany liave stepped over the fence, and declared 
that the Bible is not the Word of God, but only con- 
tains it. They maintain that it certainly contains 
the word of God; but there are also the words of 
men with it. This is a most disastrous doctrine, 
which, if true, must lead us into a gloom that is des- 
perate. How shall we then be able to know which is 
the word of God, and which is not? Such a thought 
throws open the flood-gates of doubt and leaves us 
at the mercy of a devil, whose delight is to torture the 
Christian. When you, who believe that the Bible 
only contains God's word, find some passage to which 
you can cling, he will come and say to you: How do 
you know that that is the word of God? If you would 
try to defend your position he would only chide you 
by saying: You believe that part of the Bible is 
the word of man and part is the Word of God ; now 
this may be the word of man and not of God. Chris- 
tians, where is then your sword of the Spirit where- 
with you should defend yourselves? (Eph. 6: 17.) 
You have given the devil his opportunity, and you will 
in vain be looking in your Bible for a sword, for devil- 
ish unbelief will have written on all : ''Sword of man," 
and you will not find for your defence that sword of 
the Spirit which is the Word of God. It is well to 
remember, that he who impairs the integrity of the 
Word of God, the Bible, impairs our Saviour, Jesus 
Christ. 

We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. It 



14 Doctrine of Inspiration. 

is as such a subtle inter-relation of the human agents 
which God used as instruments, and the divine element 
which God breathed into them and through them into 
the Scriptures, and which the Scriptures now breathe 
into us. 

The ancient dogmatists made the influence of God, 
who takes the writer into the service of the revealed 
history, into a too stiff, uniform, forceful, one-sided- 
ness, without duly appreciating the co-operative, in- 
dividual, manifold, free agency of the writer. The act 
of inspiration should and must be represented as an 
organic, vital, inter-working of the divine and the hu- 
man factor, without thereby jeopardizing the infalli- 
bility of the revealed truth written in the Scripture, 
and the faithfulness of the fundamental history of 
Redemption contained therein for all times. (14) 
This inter-working of the divine and human "factors 
is as difficult to explain as is that of God and man in 
the work of salvation. When it is true that 'Tt is God 
that worked in you both to will and to do work for 
His good pleasure" (Phil. 2: 13), then is it equally 
true that God operated through the writers of Scrip- 
ture, so that they became not the works of men, but 
of God, through man. 

We will now turn to a historical consideration of 
the Bible. We naturally start with the Old Testa- 
ment. The first work is the Pentateuch or the five 
books of Moses, which, according to Keil, was written 
by Moses. This dates back nearly 1800 years before 
Christ. One of the last books of the Old Testament 
is that of Haggai, written 519 before Christ. The 



Formation of the Old Testarncjit Canon. 15 

period through which the Old Testament is composed 
is then about 1300 years. 

The canon was completed slowly through the ex- 
ertions of Ezra, Nehemiah, and the men of the great 
synagogue. We may, however, properly date the 
formation of a part of the canon, especially the law, 
from Ezra, and extend the period of settling the text 
down to the close of the Talmud, at the end of the 
fifth century, A. D. 

The books were probably written upon skins, per- 
haps also on linen. In earlier times paper was used 
by the Egyptians, and it is probable that some of the 
Bible writers made use of it. Parchment is evidently 
of a later date. The old manuscripts had inaccurate 
divisions into words, and it is certain that they were 
written without the vowel points and accents. To us 
it sounds strange to hear of Avriting only consonants 
and leaving out all vowels. The Hebrews did so, 
and this explains why the Old Testament translations 
have been so various. The settling of the text may 
be referred to the close of the Talmud, at the end of 
the fifth cenury, A.D. The Massoretes fixed the read- 
ing of the text by the introduction of the vowel signs, 
consonant signs and accents. Their work was done 
from the beginning of the sixth until the eleventh cen- 
tury. Since the Massoretes closed their labors, the 
history of the Hebrew text Is the recital of the efforts 
made to hold fast to and perpetuate their work. 

I referred to the Talmud. It is not a part of our 
Bible. By it the Jews designate their body of law 
not contained in the Pentateuch. It was long forbid- 



16 The Jeiuish Tabiiud. 

den to reduce this to writing. Thus it was called the 
oral law. It is composed of Mishna, the text, and Ge- 
mara, the commentary. The Mishna was compiled by 
Rabbi Jehudah, who died 219 (?) A.D. ; but he did 
not commit it to writing. The Gamara contains the 
opinions and discussions of the wise men on the ]\Iish- 
na. Both the Jerusalemitic and the Babylonian ex- 
pounded the same JNIishnaic text. DTsraeli describes 
it thus: *Tt contains a prodigious mass of contra- 
dictory opinions, an infinite number of casuistical ca- 
ses, a logic of scholastic theology, some recondite wis- 
dom and much rambling dotage, many puerile tales 
and Oriental fancies, ethics and sophisms, reasonings 
and unreasonings, subtle solutions and maxims and 
riddles. Nothing in human life seems to have hap- 
pened which these doctors have not perplexed or pro- 
vided against." Such is a learned Jew's opinion of 
the many laws which his nation had made for them- 
selves, outside of the ones which God had given. 

Turning to the New Testament, we find that de- 
cades passed before the Church thought of collecting 
the Apostolic writings, and a yet longer time before 
they gave them canonlcity. From the few New Tes- 
tament quotations made by the Apostolic fathers, we 
conclude that the writings had not then attained canon- 
ical authority. We are, however, justified in saying that 
bv the end of the second century the canonical Gos- 
pels were In common use as a source for the life of 
Christ. The Apostolic Epistles were not yet gath- 
ered. Paul's were probably the first. After 140, A.D., 
Marclon of Sinope, made a collection of the Apostolic 



Fonnatio7i of the New Testamcfit Canon. 17 

writings, including one Go&pel and ten Pauline Epis- 
tles. At the close of the second century, our present 
New Testament was completed, and had in part re- 
ceived the unanimous endorsement of the Church ; 
but as there was no agreement as to certain books, 
there was still no canon in the universal sense. By 
397, A.D., the canon of the New Testament was esta- 
blished; but the canonicity of certain books was still 
occasionally questioned. Not until the Council of 
Trent (April 8, 1546) was the western Church called 
upon to express her opinion upon the canons. Then 
she affirmed the canon of the fourth century and 
anathematized all dissent. 

The division of the Bible into our present chapters 
has been, generally, attributed to Cardinal Hugo de 
Sancto Caro, who died A.D. 1263. He made it for 
his concordance to the Latin Vulgate. The whole 
Bible was first divided into our present verses in Ro- 
bert Stephen's Edition of the Latin Vulgate, in 
1555, A.D. 

Before proceeding to the consideration of the 
translations, we shall enumerate some of the uncial 
manuscripts of the Bible. The one most commonly 
known to us is the Codex Sinaiticus, which was found 
by Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catharine at the 
foot of Mount Sinai. Different portions were found 
between the years of 1844 ^i^d i^SQ- This Codex dates 
from the fourth century, and is now preserved at St. 
Petersburg. 

No manuscripts of the Bible now known are really 
very old. The oldest authentic date is 916, A.D., for 



18 Old Manuscripts, 

the Prophet Codex, and A.D. 1009, for an entire 
Hebrew Bible. These are both preserved at the Im- 
perial Library at St. Petersburg. 

The circulation of the New Testament Scriptures 
was probably far greater than is commonly supposed. 
Mr. Norton has made some interesting calculations, 
which tend to show that as many as 60,000 copies of 
the Gospels were circulated among Christians at the 
end of the second century.* Westcott does not want 
to vouch for the correctness of the data on which this 
calculation is based, but thinks that it may be pos- 
sible, as it is certain that even at that time the pro- 
duction of large and cheap editions of books at Rome 
was usual. 

Codex Alexandrinus, which dated back from the 
fifth century, was given to Charles I by Cyril Lucas, 
Patriarch of Constantinople, in 1628. It is now kept 
in the British Museum. 

Codex Vaticanus, which dates from the fourth 
century, contains the Old Testament and all of the 
New Testament, except Hebrews 11:14 to end, I and 
II Tim., and Titus, Phil, and the Apocalypse. This 
is now preserved in the library of the Vatican (Rome), 
and is catalogued as No. 1209. 

Besides these already mentioned there are over 
fifty other Codecis and many fragments. 

The great question which had arisen, and which 



* Genuineness of the Gospels (Ed. II, 1847) Vol. 
I; pp. 28-34. 



TransIatio7is in the Old Dispensation. Targtuns. 19 

was settled in the second century, was this : Shall the 
Bible speak the one truth in whatever language the be- 
lievers in it speak, or shall that truth be buried in the 
grave of the language in which the Church had re- 
ceived it? The answer you may read in the many 
translations of the Sacred Scriptures that we now 
have. 

This question was not foreign to the Hebrews un- 
der the Old Dispensation. The Hebrew dialect was 
superseded by the Caldee. At the time of Ezra, this 
was so common that interpretations of the Hebrew 
text were necessary, if the people should benefit by 
the reading. In Neh. 8: 8, we read: "And they read 
in the book, in the law of God, distinctly ; and they 
gave the sense, so that they understood the reading." 
The Talmud says that "to give the sense" means Tar- 
gums. These paraphrases or oral interpretations into 
Caldee are the first Scripture translations that we 
know of ; but we are unable to tell when these Targums 
for the first time were committed to writing. The 
two oldest known are those of Onkelos, a disciple of 
the older Gamaliel, on the law, and of Jonathan ben 
Uzziel on the Prophets. Jonathan was a pupil of Hil- 
lel, the most distinguished rabbi of the century just 
preceding the Christian Era. 

Somewhat later, probably during the reign of 
Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-247 B.C.), was made the 
translation into Greek, called the Septuagint, which 
is denoted by LXX. Its origin is shrouded in deep 
obscuritv. It has derived its name from the tradition 



20 Early Christian Tra7islations. PesJiito. Vulgate. 

that the work was done by seventy Jews on the Island 
of Pharos, near Alexandria, Egypt. 

The oldest partly complete translation of the New 
Testament is that into Syriac, called Peshito. It was 
probably completed at the beginning of the third cen- 
tury, and contained the four Gospels, The Acts, Epis- 
tle of James, I Peter, I John, and fourteen Pauline 
Epistles. Beginning with the second century, we find 
traces of four Coptic versions. 

In the fourth century (366-384) Sophronius Euse- 
bius Hieronymus, commonly called Jerome, at the re- 
quest of Bishop Damascus of Rome, completed a 
translation into Latin. Jerome, who in the "solitude 
of Bethlehem," produced the well-known Vulgate, 
was the most learned scholar of many centuries. The 
term Vulgate, however, was originally applied in the 
Church to the Septuagint. In this sense Jerome uses 
it. He also applied it to the old Latin Versions, 
which were made from the Septuagint. The Vulgate 
was "received with a loud outcry of reproach," and it 
took centuries for it to become the ecclesiastical trans- 
lation of the Occident. No ecclesiastic or church 
court befriended it; but it won its way on its own 
merits, and in the ninth century, its victory was com- 
plete. 

Since Alford's time the whole problem of textual 
criticism had become more definite, more detailed, and 
in a measure more complicated by the works of Tisch- 
endorf, Westcott, and Hort, and more recently of 
Blass. It is rather disturbing to find the various shifts 
that have been made during the last thirty years as 



Other Translatio7is. SI 

to the foundation codex on which the text is to be 
founded, Tischendorf preferred the Sinatic codex 
he discovered, Westcott and Hort reverted to the Vati- 
can as their mainstay, while Blass is now contending 
for the various claims of the very curious editions and 
condensations made in the Codex Bezae to constitute 
the nearest approach to the original text of the Gos- 
pels, Acts, and Epistles (15). 

We next note the translation that Bishop Ulphilas 
made for the Goths in the fourth century. From this 
version he omited the "Book of the Kings," as he 
feared that its stirring recital of wars would stimulate 
the war-loving Goth's, already too fierce martial 
spirit. 

In Anglo-Saxon we have no complete version. In 
706, A.D., Adhelm translated the Psalms, and Bede 
translated the Gospel of St. John. 

Italian Bible translations existed before the inven- 
tion of printing, — the earliest one published was that 
of Nicolo de Matherbi, in Venice, 147 1. 

We will now make our observation on the epoch 
of the Reformation. "Twenty editions of the Latin 
Bible had been printed in Germany alone before 
Luther was born, and in the year that followed the 
nailing of the "Thesis" (1519), the fourteenth known 
issue of the German Bible was put forth. All these 
fourteen issues were large folio Bibles, not mere re- 
prints, but various translations from the Vulgate." 
(16) These are facts that Canon W. J. Edmonds, 
B.D., of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Ex- 
eter, England, has taken from the "Caxton Exhibi- 



32 Luther s Trans Iatio)is. Statistics. 

tion of Bibles, of 1857." These translations are of less 
interest and of smaller consequence, as we have lost 
track of them. 

We turn to one of more importance. It is the 
battering ram of the Protestant Reformation. This 
translation obviates many of the mistakes of the "ster- 
eotyped" "Vulgate," which was the paralyzed arm 
wherewith the Latin Church held the Sword of the 
Spirit. This translation was the work of Luther. 
While confined in semi-involuntary retreat at Wart- 
burg, he translated the New Testament, which was 
printed in 1522, With the aid of Alelanchton, he later 
translated the Old Testament, and in 1534 the whole 
Bible was published. 

In France, the first Protestant translation is that 
of Lefevre d'Etaphs, which was published at Antwerp, 
in 1530. 

In describing our present status, I quote the fol- 
lowing from Edw. W. Oilman, D. D., Secretary of the 
American Bible Society : "The nineteenth century 
presents to the twentieth printed copies of the Holy 
Scriptures in about four hundred languages, as a part 
of the equipment with which the work of evangeliza- 
tion is to be carried on in the years to come. Of 
these volumes iii contain the Old and New Testa- 
ment entire ; 91 are New Testaments, and the re- 
mainder, less comprehensive as yet, indicate both a 
beginning and progress on more extensive lines. In 
Easter, 1899, J. Gordon Watts enumerates 406 lan- 
guages into which the Bible, or parts of it, is trans- 
lated. 



'Alphabets formed by Bible Translatoj'S. 23 

Wherever the Bible propaganda has worked, it has 
brought some lasting good. 

In a great many instances has the alphabet been 
constructed for the purpose of translating the Bible 
into the people's language. The Danish Missionary 
to India, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, a German by birth, 
made the Tamil dialect speak the words of the Bible. 
Cyril and Methodius constructed the current Russian 
alphabet for the sake of translating the Bible. Miesrob 
constructed the Armenian alphabet for the purpose of 
translating the Bible. What Ziegenbalg did for India 
in the first part of the eighteenth century, Ulphilas 
had done for the Goths in the fourth century. About 
one half century after king James' version was made, 
Eliot, the apostle to the American Indians, translated 
the Bible into the tongue of the Indians dwelling in 
the state of Massachusetts. But we cannot stop to 
enumerate translations, as the list is too long. When 
all historical facts relative to the development of our 
modern languages are well considered, we must con- 
clude that a greater percentage of alphabets have been 
constructed for the purpose of bringing the truths of 
the Bible to the people, than for any other purpose. 
The work of the missionary and the Bible translator 
has preceeded that of the merchant and the political 
reformer. 

This is a truth which has established itself by oft 
repeated proofs. "From whichever of the great mis- 
sionary centers of the first century we start, from 
Antioch, from Alexandria, from Carthage, or from 
Constantinople, the footprints of the Bible translator 



24 Bible Societies. 

are there. Beautiful are their feet. Their footprints 
are not only beautiful, but indelible. So strikingly 
true is this that when Dr. Salomon, one of the ablest 
British divines, was meeting the allegation that the 
four Gospels were of a good deal later than Apostolic 
times, he replied with equal logic, learning, and wit, 
'that at the time it was doubted if our Gospels were 
born, we find their children full grown.'" (17). 

Back of these translations stand the powerful Bible 
Societies, whose purpose it is to spread the blessed 
Gospel. The British and Foreign Bible Society was 
founded, i\Iarch 7, 1804. Since then many have been 
1 ^med on the continent of Europe. In 183 1, an 
Evangelical Bible Society was established even in 
Russia to disseminate the Gospel among the Protest- 
ants. In 1777, during the Revolutionary War, Con- 
gress was memorialized to print thirty thousand copies 
of the Bible in order to supply the demand. But, 
owing to the want of type and paper they could not 
be printed, and hence the Committee on Commerce 
was empowered to import 20,000 from Holland, Scot- 
land, or elsewhere, at the expense of Congress. In 
consequence of the embargo act this scheme could not 
be carried out. In 1782, a committee reported, recom- 
mending a Bible printed by Robert Atkin in Philadel- 
phia. But the quantity was too limited and the price 
too high -for the poor; hence the first American So- 
ciety was formed in Philadelphia in 1808. In 18 14, 
the Danish Bible Society was formed, and in 1816, 
the Norwegian. 

The Bible contains a complete series of facts, and 



C/iaracfe?-istiiS of the Bible. 25 

of historical men to explain time and eternity, such 
as no other religion has to offer. Everything in it is 
grand, and worthy of God. The Gospel is more than 
a book, it is a living thing, active, powerful, overcom- 
ing every obstacle in the way. (i8) The Bible is the 
book of books, it is the sun in the center of all other 
religious records ; the Kings of the Chinese, the Vedas 
of India, the Zend Avesta of the Persians, the Eddas 
of the Germans, the Jewish Talmud, and the Aloha- 
medan Koran ; judging all that is hostile in them, 
reconciling and bringing into liberty whatever ele- 
ments of truth they may contain. It stands like a 
repelling and attracting force in the center of all 
literature as Vv^ell as theology. (19) The Bible is not 
only a book, it is a collection of 66 books, written by 
about 35 authors during a period of over 1800 years. 
Yet, the sacred writings, notwithstanding their endless 
diversity, as to authors, time, form, language, con- 
stitute one Holy Scripture, perfectly consistent with 
itself, and perfectly distinct from all other writings ; 
yet entering into such a relation and interchange with 
them as to manifest as perfect a unity as if they had 
been written by one pen, sprung from one fundamen- 
tal thought, in one year, in a single moment. This 
Unity of the Holy Scripture rests upon the unity of 
its eternal Spirit, of its eternal norm or principle, 
its eternal contents, its eternal object. Whatever is 
eternal forms a living, concrete unity under the 
diversity of time ; and thus the eternal, divine purpose 
of redemption in Christ forms its living unity under 
the diversities of the sacred writings. This is 



26 Unity of the Scripture. 

the red cord which passes through the Bible from the 
first of Genesis, where it is foretold that the "seed of 
the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent," to 
the last pages, where He is depicted as seated in His 
glory. The Holy Scripture in its subjective spirit is 
animated by one pervading, peculiar, religious con- 
sciousness, — Faith. Faith is the knowledge of God 
awakened by the self-revelation of God, not as existing 
only, but as manifesting himself vividly afar off, and 
near at hand. To this knowledge there is a confidence 
in Him, having its root in this knowledge and agreeing 
with it, — a confidence not resting upon Him in His 
general character, but upon Him in the promise of 
salvation in His Word. Viewing the Holy Scripture 
as to its effects, its unity proves it to be the Word of 
God. It exerts a power within and beyond itself ; it 
sheds light upon itself; it radiates its light from its 
mighty living center — the world-redeeming Christ — 
to every part, and reflects it from each part to every 
other, and back upon the central truth itself. Thus 
by virtue of the analogy of faith, and the analogy of 
Scripture, the Bible is the only indivisible word of 
God, in its total impression and operation, more fully 
the Word of God, than in its particular words and 
utterances. (20). 

We have thus made a short review of the history 
of the Bible, and find that it has come into the world 
to stay. No single book has had more opposition, and 
yet none has more that build their hope on it. The 
Bohemian Wickliffe, IMathew of Jarrow, voices the 
sentiment of millions in the following words : "From 



hnperishability of the Scripture. 37 

my youth up, whether on my journeys or at home, on 
business or at leisure, never was my Bible out of my 
sight. My soul was, as it were, espoused to it. In 
every sorrow, in every persecution, I ever took me to 
my Bible, which walked with me aS my betrothed. 
And when I saw others carrying about the relics and 
bones of saints, I, for my part, chose to myself the 
Bible, my elect, my comrade in all life's journey." 

Text books of science and geography must con- 
tinually change, as their truths are not absolute or 
imperishable. The Bible will be the same as it con- 
tains the absolute truth of man's condition and the 
means of his salvation. The Bible is a fountain, whose 
waters feed intellect, heart, life, promoting the highest 
worship as well as the largest humanity. Kingdoms 
fall, institutions perish, civilizations change, human 
doctrines disappear ; but the imperishable truths which 
pervade and sanctify the Bible shall bear it above the 
flood of change and the deluge of years. It will re- 
main forever (21). 

This book is the mirror of divinity and the right- 
ful regent of the world. Other books, after shining 
their seasons, may perish in flames fiercer than those 
which consumed the Alexandrian library ; this, in 
essence, must remain, pure as gold and inconsumable 
as asbestos, amid the flames of general conflagration. 
Other books may be forgotten in the universe, where 
suns go down and disappear like bubbles in the 
stream ; this book, transferred to a higher clime, shall 
shine as the brightness of that eternal firmament, and 



28 



Sources Quoted. 



as those higher stars which are forever and forever. 
{22). Yes, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
my word shall not pass away." (Math. 24:35). 

(i) Carlyle, (2) Daniel Webster. (3) J. P. Lange. D. D. (4) John 
Adams (second Pres. U. S.) (5) Mathew Arnold. (6) William H. Seward. 
(7) Edw. Burke. (8) Dr. Melville, (g) Victor Hugo. (10) S. T. Coleridge. 
(it) Kitto. (12) Sir W.Jones. (13) Diderot. (14) Delitzsch. (15) Literary 
Digest. (16) Ecumenical Mission Conference Report iqoo. (17) Canon W. 
J. Edmonds. (18) Napoleon Boneparte. (iq) J. P. Lange, D. D. (20) J. P. 
Lange, D. D. (21) J. F. Clark. (22) Geo. Gilfillan. 




THE BIBLE AS UNBELIEVERS REALLY 
SEE IT. 

Psalms 14:1. The fool hath said in his 
heart, There is no God. 




AS Christians we believe there is a God, and 
that this God is made known to us through 
our own conscience, but is chiefly revealed 
to us in the Holy Bible. It is strange 
that not all, who have enjoyed the bless- 
ings this volume has brought to the world, 
believe this. We believe, and all admit, 
that the Bible has made tlie world better 
wherever it has been introduced ; but 
many brought up with us, and instructed 
in the same history have worked hard to do away 
with the Bible. The Bible, after having been the 
precursor of all that is good, the exponent of civiliza- 
tion, and the index to noble life, is now assailed alike 
by sceptics, agnostics, infidels and their likes. If 
they had their way the Bible would be no more. It 
is hardly probable that they would grant it even a 
place co-ordinate with the Indian Vedas, Roman and 
Grecian Mythology, Kings of China, Jewish Talmud. 

(29) 



30 Influence of Christianity on Nations, 

Eddas of the Germans, Mohamedan's Koran and the 
Persian's Zend Avesta. These people are inhumanly 
unappreciative and heartlessly unthankful. After their 
benefactor has brought them from Egyptian darkness 
of heathendom into the warmth and liberty of Christ- 
ian civilization, the persons rescued are turning upon 
their Saviour the javelin of wit and the sword of mis- 
interpreted reasoning. 

It can hardly be possible that these modern Bible 
haters are blind to the things revealed in the history 
of the world. What would the rude Goths have been 
without the softening influence of the teachings which 
Bishop Ulfilas brought, and what would the inhab- 
itants of the New Hebrides be had not the influence 
of the Gospel, preached by John G. Paton, transformed 
the canibal into the peaceable inhabitant? These two 
instances, one from the fourth century of the Christian 
Era and the other from the last decade of the last 
century, adequately illustrate that the Gospel has not 
lost its power of transformation, but can accomplish 
the same things to-day as it did hundreds of years 
ago. Again, it can not be that the Bible scorners have 
forgotten what our Christian nations owe to the Bible. 
Lord Bacon said: "There never was found in any 
age of the world either religion or law that did so 
highly exalt the public good as the Bible." Lion 
hearted Andrew Jackson joyfully acknowledged our 
national indebtedness, when he said of the Bible: 
"That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic 
rests;" and Queen Victoria on presenting a costly 
copy of the Bible, takes occasion to say: "Tell the 



Sysfe??ts of Belief. Deism. ol 

prince that this is the secret of England's greatness." 
Yet this is the vokime that is so much persecuted. 
The story of its persecution is a repetition of the story 
of the child that had outgrown home, and with mur- 
derous intent turned upon the motlier that had nour- 
ished it. With Josh Bilhngs we say that "Impudence, 
ingratitude, ignorance and cowardice make up the 
creed of infidehty" and of Bible slanderers in general. 

It is my purpose to give you, in the first place a 
brief review of the different isms that are antagonastic 
to Christianity, and secondly to present to you tes- 
timonies from the exponents of these ideas, which 
testimonies prove just what we claim for the Bible. 
These testimonies are taken from the writings of 
such men as have strenuously opposed Christianity, 
and as such they are certainly not the fruits of blind 
loyalty or the product of prejudiced sentiment. We 
shall take a look at the army of unbelievers to see 
how they are marshalled in regiments and companies, 
all trying to attack Christianity from their peculiar 
vantage point. 

Deism designates that view of God which, as 
against Atheism, recognizes his real existence, as 
against Pantheism, his distinctness from the world ; 
and as opposed to Theism, represents him not merely 
as transcendent above the world, and distinct from it, 
but also separated in the sense that, having once 
created the world, he is not imminent in it as its 
providential ruler and guide ; but allows it to pursue 
an independent course. Historically Deism finds in 
Christianity only a religion of nature, accepts it only 



32 Systems of Belief. Theism. Pantheism. Theosof>hy. 

as far as it agrees with reason. It is pure material- 
ism, and is rationalistic in the treatment of the Bible. 
It is a combined protest of miseducated thought in 
England as opposed to Christianity. 

The Theist holds that the universe was constituted 
and upheld by a supreme, self-existing, omniscient, 
righteous, and benevolent being. This being exists 
distinct from and independent of his creation. It 
carefully considers, how far the categories of thought 
are applicable to God. Its sources of knowledge are 
the physical creation, the human mind, history and the 
Bible. In opposition to Polytheism, it claims for the 
Divine Unity, self existence and independence ; in 
opposition to Pantheism, transcendence and personal- 
ity; in opposition to Deism, an all-presence and 
activity. 

Pantheism is the view that God and the universe 
are identical ; it is God in everything. This was 
taught in India in the A^edantic system of philosophy, 
and is even now upheld by the Brahmins. Spinoza 
has often been called a Pantheist; but, according to 
Schaff, this application is due to a misconstruction of 
the ideas of Spinoza. Shelling is probably the greatest 
exponent of this system. 

Theosophy is a system of religion and philosophy 
which lays claim to direct divine inspirations and an 
immediate divine revelation. They claim an absolute 
insight into the divine essence, which is completed 
gradually only. Their cardinal point is to speculate 
on the construction of the divine nature. 

The present theosophical society was founded in 



Systems of Belief. TheosopJiy. 33 

New York in 1875 by Alme. H. Blavatsky and Col. 
H. S. Olcott. In 1879, they removed their head- 
quarter to Madras, India. The object of the society 
may breifly be stated under the four following head- 
ings: 

(i) To form the nucleus of a universal brother- 
hood. (2) To study Aryan literature, religion and 
science. (3) To vindicate the importance of the in- 
quiry. (4) To explore the hidden mystery of nature, 
and the latent powers of God. 

The following are some of its most important 
teachings : 

(i) The system traces all manifestations of God 
back to the eminative powers of Logoi and still further 
back to "an omnipresent" eternal immutable prin- 
ciple, on which all speculation is impossible. (2) 
Man is the product of evolution from below upward. 
(3) The higher part of man incarnates again and 
again in human bodies. (4) The law which ordains 
that every man shall reap the full consequences of all 
his actions, either good or bad, is called the Karma. 
(5) Those that through successive incarnations have 
proceeded in the evolution so far as to have acquired 
a power over and a knowledge of the forces of nature, 
beyond that of the ordinary, are called masters or 
perfect men. (6) The true road to knowledge is 
through the higher faculties that are latent in all men, 
and cannot be attained through external research. 

As ridiculously absurd and perfectly heathenish as 
this may seem, this system claimed a membership of 
one hundred thousand within the United States in 



34 Systems of Belief. Ihiitarianisvt. 

1895. Even in our midst, and only a few blocks from 
this sanctuary there exists a nucleus of this propa- 
ganda. I am not able to see in this system anything 
but the Buddhism of India, and even the members 
of the society freely admit the truth of this view. If 
it were not so that theosophy is modern Buddhism, 
why should it be necessary to transfer the headquar- 
ters from New York to Madras, India, the soil where 
Buddhism has grown ever since it was started? The 
doctrines are so much like that it is hard to distingush 
theosophy from Buddhism. Dr. Hartmann, the theos- 
ophist leader of Germany claims that he has the soul 
of William Shakespeare. Dr. Pember tells us that 
the Hindoo adepts say that an ordinary being must 
pass through 800 incarnations before he completes his 
purification at Nirvana. Theosophy says: *'Be good 
and do your level best and in a million years you 
may succeed in losing consciousness." 

Unitarianism is hardly entitled to the assumed hon- 
or of being a protestant religion. It is a society of un- 
believers. Dr. Priestly, the great champion of Unitar- 
ianism, said of President Jefferson : "He is generally 
reported to be an unbeliever, but, if so, you know he 
cannot be far from us." Unitarianism does not accept 
Christ as the Son of God. Jesus was only a perfect 
man. Before he entered his mission he was dedicated 
by the Lord to his holy work, and as a reward for his 
faithfulness he was transported into heaven after his 
resurrection. Unitarianism takes away from Chris- 
tianitv its very essence : the Word that became flesh 
and dwelt among us. Thus I have classified it as a 



Higher Criticism. 35 

f./SLcm antagonistic, rather than favorable, to true 
Christianity. 

The Christian Church must not look to the outside 
world only, when it is to locate the dangers that 
assail the Bible and true religion. The Bible has had 
severe attacks from those of its own supporters that 
have advocated the so-called "higher criticism." 
Probably most prominent among them is F. C. Baur, 
Prof, of Church History at Tubingen, (where he died- 
in i860). He applied Hegel's method of dialectic 
development to Church history and the growth of the 
New Testament, and thus founded the well-known 
''Tubingen School of Theology." Baur acknowledged 
as genuine, only the Epistle to the Romans, the two 
to the Corinthians and that to the Galatians. He was 
a scholar of no small ability, and his assertions stirred 
the more conservative theologians up to an activity 
that resulted in a complete vindication of the doctrine 
upholding the genuineness of the whole New Testa- 
ment. Thus it may be said that the ''Tubingen 
school," in a negative sense, has been a blessing to 
the Christian Church. Baur accomplished what he 
least expected. He caused the leaders of thought In the 
Christian Church to bend their energies to thorough 
investigation that finally brought about a complete 
overthrow of the system which Baur attempted to 
Inaugurate. 

Scepticism is the name of the principle of universal 
doubt, or at least doubt with regard to the validity of 
all judgments respecting that which lies beyond the 
range of experience. Scepticism was quite common 



36 Scepticism . Agnosticisin. Atheism. 

among the Greeks. The best known of the Greek 
Sceptics was Socrates. In the Christian Church scep- 
ticism manifested itself at an early period. We find 
St. Augustine opposing it. It revived in the Middle 
Ages ; but then it dealt rather with arguments than 
with the teachings themselves. The Renaissance 
caused many to fall back into the old rut of scepticism. 

Agnosticism is a modern child of Cant's theory of 
knowledge. It is a theory of the unknowable, which 
assumes its most definite form in the denial of the 
possibility of any knowledge of God. It does not 
advance as far as atheism — to make an absolute denial 
of the existence of God — but is content by denying 
that we can have any knowledge with reference to 
this God. 

The ideas of the Atheist are ancient ; we find them 
quite prevalent even among the god-fearing Greeks, 
and there have been adherents to the idea through 
every age and country. The Atheist denies the exist- 
ence of a God and makes man a finite being. This 
system has never been generally accepted anywhere. 
What Plutarch said of his time is true even now: 
"There has never been a state of Atheists. You may 
travel over the world, and you may find cities without 
walls, without kings, without saints, without theatre 
or gymnasium, but you will never find a city Avithout 
god, without prayer, without oracle, without sacri- 
fice. Sooner may a city stand without foundation than 
a state without belief in the gods. This is the bond 
of all society, and the pillar of all legislation." 

Infidelltv is absolute denial of all the claims of 



Infidelity. In Ff-ance. ^ 

Christianity as possessing a divine revelation. As 
the agnostic, it does not plead ignorance, as the 
sceptic, it does not plead doubt ; as the atheist, it is 
not satisfied with denying only the existence of God, 
but makes a broader sweep than all combined. It is 
not simply a nonacceptance of Christianity that it 
advocates ; but it is a downright rejection. 

France is the only country where infidelity suc- 
ceeded in securing for its principles the sanctions of 
legislation. ]\Irs. Gardiner describes the religious con- 
ditions of France in the following passage : "Morality 
and reason as displa3^ed by man, were declared alone 
fit for veneration, and the worship to take place was, 
to be a glorification of human nature and material 
objects. . .''The People," said Chaumutte, ''shall be our 
God; we need no other". . . ."We want," said Hebert, 
"no other religion than that of nature ; no other temple 
than that of reason; no other worship than that of 
liberty, equality, and fraternity." This Is the most 
potent of the causes that brought about the social con- 
ditions Mrs. Gardiner describes in the following quo- 
tation: "Persons of every condition of life — manu- 
factures, shopkeepers, and artisans — condemned by 
military commissioners, were shot in batches of two 
or three hundred at a time. Whole streets and squares 
were blown up by gun powder ; an immense amount 
of property was plundered and destroyed. According 
to the reckonings of the two deputies on whom the 
immediate responsibility rested, in 5 months the popu- 
lation was reduced from 130,000 to 80,000 souls." 
A true reign of liberty, fraternity, and equality indeed ! 



38 Infidelity in United States. 

As the people were mowed down like grass, immoral- 
ity, crime, and misery breeded as fast as the plagues. 
Let Paris, under its first revolution, warn us of the 
health consuming and life destroying orgies that would 
attend the turning to infidelity. 

Even in our own country, this doctrine has had 
strong advocates. Not mentioning any of those that 
are dead, we could still compile a long list of living, 
active exponents of this idea. On Jan. 27th, 1902, a 
National Liberal Party was organized at Cincinnati, 
Ohio, by representatives from all parts of the country. 
The preamble of the new constitution that was adopted, 
declares for the separation of Church and state, to the 
extent of abolishing Chaplains in the army and navy, 
executive bodies and all public institutions ; the tax- 
ation of Church property and abandonment of Sabbath 
observances are laid down as desirable conquests. 

It is true that all systems of belief attach a certain 
sancitity to the results alike of science and of ethics. 
Truth is truth, and right is right, they all say, and 
with almost equal conviction and emphasis, but this 
conviction and emphasis are irrational if the causes 
of these results, however far removed, are merely 
blind mechanical matter and force. Their very solem- 
nity points to a different origin, which we can find 
only in the God which is revealed in the Bible. I 
never have met a free-thinker who did not believe a 
hundred times more nonsense than he can find in the 
Bible. Josh Billings says : 'T had rather be an idiot 
than an infidel. If I am an infidel, I have made myself 
one, if an idiot, I was made one." It woiild be well 



Diviiiity of the Scripture. 89 

if these unbelievers of the Bible, in their process of 
reasoning about this sacred volume, would be rational 
and apply the following argument in place of the 
ones ordinarily used : The Bible is divine, because its 
fruits testify that it must be of a high origin. And 
not reason from the divinity of the Bible to the divin- 
ity of man's actions. The Right Hon. Arthur Balfour, 
suggests that instead of saying the commandments or 
the creeds are binding because they are divine, we 
should say that they are surely divine because they 
are recognized as binding. 

We have now briefly reviewed some of the most 
consplcious outposts of the unbelievers. If we were 
to examine them closer, we should find that all main- 
tain that the Christian religion is a mistake. They 
would centre their attack on the Bible. For them 
the Mosaic account of creation is an absurdity large 
enough to throw all nations into rollicking guffaw. 
With great boastfulness these self conceited men tell us 
"that there never was a miracle ; that the Bible Is a 
friend of cruelty, of murder, of polygamy, of all forms 
of base crime ; that the Chrlstiaii religion is w^oman's 
tyrant and man's stultification ; that the Bible from lid 
to lid is a fable, a humbug, a sham, a lie ; that the mar- 
tyrs who died tor its truth were miserable dupes ; the 
Church of Jesus Christ is properly gazetted as a fool ; 
they want to tell us that when Thomas Carlyle, the 
skeptic, said, "The Bible Is a noble book," he was 
dropping Into Imbecility: that when Theodore Parker 
declared In Music Hall, Boston, "Never a boy or girl 
in all Christendom but was profited by that great 



40 What we do not Believe about the Bible. 

book," he was becoming very weak minded; that it 
is something to bring a bkish to the cheek of every 
patriot, that John Adams, the Father of American 
Independence, declared, "The Bible is the best book 
in all the world," and that lion hearted Andrew Jack- 
son turned into a a sniveling coward when he said, 
"That book, sir, is the rock on which our Republic 
rests ;" and that Daniel Webster abdicated the throne 
of his intellectual power and resigned his logic, and 
from being the great expounder of the constitution, 
and the great lawyer of his age, turned into an idiot 
when he said, ''My heart assures and reassures mc 
that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine 
reality." And that William H. Seward, the diplomat 
of last century, only showed his puerility when he 
declared, ''The whole hope of human progress is 
suspended on that ever growing influence of the 
Bible ;" they want us to believe that it is wisest for us 
to take that book from the throne in the affections of 
uncounted multitudes and put it under our feet, to be 
trampled upon by hatred and hissing contempt. They 
say that your old father was hoodwinked, and cajoled, 
and cheated, and befooled, when he leaned on this as 
a staff, after his hair grew gray, and his hands were 
tremulous, and his steps shortened as he came up to 
the verge of the grave ; and that your mother sat 
with a pack of lies on her lap while reading of the 
better country, and of the ending of all her aches and 
pains, and reunion, not only with those of you who 
stood around her, but with the children she had buried, 
so that she could read no more until she took off her 



Marcus Aurelitis on Religion. 41 

spectacles and wiped from them the heavy mist of 
many tears. Ah, friends ! if what they say be true. 
Alas ! that for forty and fifty years, they should have 
walked under this illusion, and had it under their 
pillow when they lay dying in the back room, and ask 
that some words from the live page might be cut 
upon the tomb stone, under the shadow of the old 
country meeting house, where they sleep to-day, 
waiting for a resurrection that will never come." 

We shall now turn to our second consideration, 
which is to summon our witnesses that we may know 
what they have to say as to the subject under consider- 
ation. Remember, these are unprejudiced witnesses 
that can not be ruled out on account of partiality. 

The heathen king, Marcus Aurelius, in his medi- 
tations, 12:28 say^: *'To those who ask, where has 
thou seen the gods, or how does thou comprehend 
that they exist and so worship them, I ai^swer: In 
the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes ; 
in the second place, neither have I seen my own soul, 
and yet I honor it. Thus, then with respect of the 
gods, from what I constantly experience of their 
power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and 
I venerate them." 

We will not stop to speak in detail of the great 
religious men from the non- or pre-Christian era. 
In passing, allow me only to say that I have often 
been surprised to note how unbelievers have bubbled 
over with praises for the classics. Homer, Aeschylus, 
Sophocles, Plutarch, and others receive their due 
amount of praises. It is quite interesting to see what 



42 Homer. Aecshyius. Sophocles. Plutarch. 

attitude these idols of the unbeHevers maintained to- 
wards ReHgion. Homer is called the "Grecian Theo- 
logian." He tells us that the gods operate not only 
on the corporeal part of men, but especially on their 
minds and heart. Aeschylus tells us, that no "mortal 
may dare raise his head too high" and that "Zeus 
tames the excessive raising of hearts." Sophocles 
maintains that self-will and insolent pride arouses the 
righteous indignation of the gods. Plutarch says, 
that there is nothing that so strengthens the heart as 
the religious writs and the services of the gods in the 
temple. Now, what surprises us is, that the men that 
so praise the classics, can deny the existence of God, 
— the very existence of whom is best proven by that 
deep inner conviction of man which the Greecians 
unrestrainedly dare utter. Then they uttered what they 
believed to be true even in spite of anathema and 
persecution. 

Among a certain class of people it has now become 
fashionable to ridicule religion. It has become fashion- 
able for some to drown the deep conviction that they 
have of the existence of an all-ruling supernatural 
being, — a conviction which lies so deeply imbedded in 
our hearts that it takes a monstrous effort to conceal 
it. Yet, because it has become sort of a fashion, some 
will persistently do it ! For many this becomes a 
hard task. It is indeed a hard garment to wear. But 
thou fool ! anything for fashion ! Even pigeon toed 
shoes or tightly laced corsets will be gladly worn 
when it is fashionable so to do. If it causes pain no 
one is supposed to grin for that. Corns and bunions, 



is Unbelief in the Bible Fashio7iable? 43 

and danger of internal diseases cuts no figure here. 
Fashion rules with a rod that is all subjugating. O, 
mortal man ! what a fool thou art. Similarly, if it 
causes pain to quell the voice of the conscience, some 
will nevertheless persistenly do it, simply to be, as 
they think, fashionable. We shall now be delighted 
to hear what some of these "fashionable men," of 
modern times, have to say of Christ. 

John Leckey, the well known British author and 
philosophical writer speaks thus of Christ and his 
religion : "It was reserved for Christianity to present 
to the world an ideal character, which, through all 
the changes of eighteen centuries, has filled the hearts 
of men with an impassioned love, and has shown 
itself capable of acting in all ages, nations, tempera- 
ments and conditions ; which has not only been the 
highest pattern of virtue, but the highest incentive 
to its practice ; and which has exerted so deep an 
influence, that it may be truly said, the simple record 
of three short years of active life has done more to 
regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisi- 
tions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of 
moralists. This has, indeed, been the well-spring of 
whatever has been best and purest in the Christian 
life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the 
priestcraft, the persecution, and fanaticism, which 
have defaced the Church, it has preserved, in the 
character and example of its founder, an enduring 
principle of regeneration." 

When Thomas Paine, the greatest of French In- 
fidels, was contesting the Bible, he wrote : "I know 



44 Tho7nas Pai7ie and the Bible. 

not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I 
keep no Bible." What is mysterious to me is, how 
he could so freely criticise that which he owns he 
knew nothing about. This is much like the Iowa 
graduate that lectured on the inconsistencies of the 
Bible, and proved his assertion by pointing out how 
ridiculous it was, that the Ark which Noah built was 
carried by the Israelites for forty years through the 
desert ! But, Paine can not plead such absolute ignor- 
ance of the Bible, as the following statements prove : 
''Nothing that is here said can apply even with the 
most distant disrespect to the real character of Jesus 
Christ. He was a virtuous and admirable man. The 
morality that he preached and practiced was of the 
most benevolent kind ; it has not been exceeded by 
any." 

John Stuart Mill, one of the ablest of English 
skeptics, made the following declaration concerning 
Jesus Christ. 'Tt is no use to say Christ, as exhibited 
in the Gospels, is not historical, and that we know 
not how much of what is admirable has been super- 
added by the tradition of his followers. Who among 
his disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of 
inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagin- 
ing the life and character revealed in the Gospels? 
Certainly not the fisherman of Galilee ; as certainly 
not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were 
of a totally different sort ; still less the early Chris- 
tian writers, in whom nothing is more evident than 
that the good which was in them was all derived from 
a higher source. About the life and sayings of Christ 



John Stuart Mill on the Gospels. 45 

there is a stamp of personal originality, combined 
with profundity of insight, which if we abandon the 
idle expectation of finding scientific precision where 
something very different was aimed at, must place 
the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of 
those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the 
very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom 
our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius 
is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest 
moral reformer and martyr to , the greatest mission 
that ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said 
to have made a bad choice in picking on this man as 
the ideal representative and guide of humanity ; nor 
even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, 
to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from 
the abstract into the concrete than to endeavor so to 
live that Christ would approve our life." 

''Amongst the personages to whom mankind is 
indebted for the perfection of its moral consciousness, 
Jesus occupies, at any rate, the highest place. He 
introduced Into our ideal of goodness some features 
in which it was deficient before he appeared. By the 
religious direction which he impressed upon morality, 
he gave it a higher consecration, and by incarnating 
goodness in his own person, he imparted to it a living 
warmth. With reference to all that bears upon the 
love of God and our neighbor, upon purity of heart, 
and upon the individual life, nothing can be added 
to the moral intuition which Jesus Christ has 
left us." 

The name of Robert G. Ingersoll, is quite familiar 



46 Robert G. higersoll o)t Christ. 

to most of us. He strove hard to ridicule the Bible 
and religion and was once quite sure that he should 
see the day when all ''men of reason" should turn 
from this folly. But Ingersoll died and the Bible 
stands firmer than ever before. Ingersoll's attempts 
were futile. He tried hard to keep from saying any- 
thing good of the Bible, religion and Christ. Yet 
he has given us the following glowing tribute: "Let 
me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I 
have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that 
the place where man died for man is holy ground ; 
and let me say, once for all, to that grand and serene 
man I gladly pay the homage of my admiration and 
my tears. He was a reformer in his day. He was 
an infidel in his time. He was regarded as a blas- 
phemer, and his life was destroyed by hypocrites who 
have, in all ages, done what they could to trample 
freedom, out of the human mind. Had I lived at 
that time I would have been his friend, and should 
he come again he would not find a better friend than 
I would be." In a letter to Ely Perkins, who was com- 
piling a book on ''Kings of Platform and Pulpit," 
Mr. Ingersoll wrote: "In using my speeches, do not 
use any assault that I may have thoughtlessly made 
on Christ, which I foolishly made in my early life. 
With Renan I believe Christ was the one perfect man. 
"Do unto others," is the perfection of religion and 
morality. It is the "summum bonum." It was loftier 
than the teachings of Socrates, Plato, Mohammed, 
Moses or Confucius. It superseded the command- 
ments that Moses claimed to have gotten from God, 



Should Christianity be Abolished? 47 

for with Christ's "do unto others," there could be no 
murder, lying, covetousness or war. It superseded 
Greek patriotism, Roman fortitude, or Anglo-Saxon 
bravery, for with, "do unto others," bravery and 
patriotism would not be needed." 

Who can understand why IngersoU tried so hard 
to rob humanity of that which is so good, when he 
very well knew that he could give nothing in its 
stead? Has religion done any one harm? Has it 
done any man good? Ask all those who have tried 
it. It can make even the most destitute happy. It 
has given strength to the weak so they bravely met 
the tyrant's brandished steel and the lion's goary 
mane. The dark prison walls of the dungeon at 
Phillipi are by it converted to a sanctuary in which 
Paul and Silas sing hymns of praise. (Act. 16:25). 
The Bible has been a blessing to all nations, which 
has been admitted, and an injury to none. Why then 
work so hard to take it away? Any power that op- 
poses the good must be bad in itself, and infidelity 
is certainly such an evil. It is carnation of the will 
itself. Did you ever hear of an infidel admonishing 
his children, at the hour of death, to renounce God? 
They have not faith enough in their own belief to do 
so. They would then much rather say, as did a prom- 
inent infidel: "Dear child, die in the faith of your 
mother." Did you ever hear a true Christian on his 
death bed renounce Christianity and accept infidel- 
ity? No, but we have heard of many infidels, that 
have then turned to the Christian religion. Did you 



48 Hebnholtz. Ernest Renaiis Tribute to Christ. 

ever see the infidel announce his faith on his tomb- 
stone ? 

In his last days Helmholtz had unconsciously 
leaned to atheism. He was much given to explaining 
a vast number of phenomena by the theory of the 
"vortex." One day his assistant asked him: "But 
what made the 'vortex'?" The man of genius looked 
at his young companion for a moment, and said : 
"God made the vortex." 

Ernest Renan, that sprightly and imaginative 
skeptic, spoke of Jesus Christ in this wise: "What- 
ever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will 
never be surpassed. His worship will grow young 
without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears with- 
out end ; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts ; 
all ages will proclaim that, among all the sons of men, 

there is none born greater than Jesus He founded 

the pure worship, belonging to no special period or 
country, which, in truth, all lofty souls shall practice 

to the end of time Noble Initiator, repose now in 

thy glory ! Thy work is finished. A thousand times 
more loved since thy death than during thy course 
here below. Thou shalt become the corner stone of 
humanity insomuch that to tear thy name from this 
world would be to shake it to its very foundations." 

J. J. Rousseau, another French skeptic of ability 
and renown, in a treatise on education, pays the fol- 
lowing grand and glowing tribute to the personal 
character of Jesus Christ: "Is it possible that the 
sacred personage, whose history it (the Bible) con- 
tains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find 



/. /. Rosscans Tribute to the Character of Christ. 49 

that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious 
sectary ? What sweetness, what purity in his manner ! 
What an effecting gracefulness in his instructions ! 
What subhmity in his maxims ! What profound wis- 
dom in his discourses ! What presence of mind, what 
subtilty, what truth and justice in his replies ! How 
great the command over his passions ! Where is the 
man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and 
so die, without weakness and without ostentation? 
— But where could Jesus learn, among his countrymen, 
that pure and sublime morality of wdiich He only 
hath given us both precept and example? The great- 
est wisdom w^as made known among the most bigoted 
fanatics, and the simplicity of the most heroic 

virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth 

Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of 
a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. 
Shall we suppose the evangelical history a mere fic- 
tion? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of 
fiction ; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which 
nobody doubts, is not as well attested as that of Jesus 
Christ/' Again he says : ''Observe the works of 
our philosophers with all their pomp of diction ; how 
contemptible they are, compared with the scriptures !'* 
The greatest good in the world is truly that which 
is most persecuted. It is the light shining in the 
darkness, while the darkness does not comprehend it. 
Yes, even more than that : the darkness seems to have 
assumed different aspects simply to put out the light. 
But the light shall nevertheless shine till the dark- 
ness disappears, and the light shall at last reign su- 



50 The Bible is its own Defense. 

preme. As Christ came to his own and was rejected, 
so this Gospel has been rejected by many of those 
that may be called his own ; yet, in spite of this, the 
Gospel shall not be shaken. There is no need of rising 
to defend it, as it will keep its own. — To defend 
the Bible would be as foolish, as for the soldier to 
defend his sword. What we must do, is to take the 
sword to defend ourselves. 

The Bible does not keep people in ignorance ; it 
is the harbinger of other lights. Where it leads, it 
developes the minds and prepares the way for the 
lights of civilization. No nation where the Gospel 
has been preached has remained in barbarism, as is 
the case where Zoroastricism, Mohammedanism, 
Buddhism have held sway. The Bible makes good 
men and women. It is true that many do wrong 
under the cloak of Christian religion ; but that is not 
the fault of the Bible any more, than it is the fault o+ 
our Laws that murder is perpetrated amongst us. 

Wendell Phillips said : "The answer to die Shastas 
is India ; the answer to Confucianism is China ; the 
answer to the Koran is Turkey ; the answer to the 
Bible is the Christian civilization of protestant Europe 
and America." We may also add : the answer to in- 
fidelity is the lawlessness and horror of the "Reign 
of Terror" in France at the close of the eighteenth 
century. 

We have now tried to vindicate the glory of the 
divine revelation by the words of the unbelievers, and 
truly, out of their own mouths are they judged. 
Many of the unbelievers are always so anxious to 



Mystery Essential to Religion. 51 

prove their unbelief, that they leave us slightly in 
doubt as to the firmness of their faith in their ov/n 
assertions. We have not, nor shall we try, to pry 
into the mysteries of religion. No sound mind is 
perplexed by the contemplation of mysteries. Indeed, 
they are a source of positive satisfaction and delight. 
If nothing were dark, — if all around us, and above 
us, were clearly seen, — the truth itself would soon 
appear stale and mean. Everything truly great must 
transcend the powers of the human mind ; and hence, 
if nothing were mysterious, there would be nothing 
worthy of our veneration and worship. It is mystery, 
indeed, which lends such unspeakable grandeur and 
variety to the scenery of the moral world. Without 
it, all would be clear, it is true, but nothing grand. 
There would be lights but no shadows. And around 
the very lights themselves, there would be nothing 
soothing and sublime, in which the soul might rest 
and the imagination revel. 

Hence it is no part of our object to pry into 
mystery, but to get rid of absurdity. And, in our 
humble opinion, this would long since have been done, 
and the difficulty in question solved, had not the 
friends of truth incautiously given the most powerful 
protection to the sophism and absurdity of the atheist, 
by throwing around it the sacred garb of mystery. 

Talmage makes the following comparison between 
Infidelity and Christianity : ''There stands Christian- 
ity. There stands Infidelity. Compare what they 
have done. Compare their resources. There is Chris- 
tianity, a prayer on her lip; a benediction on her 



53 Christianity and Infidelity Conparcd. 

brow ; both hands full of help for all who want help ; 
the mother of thousands of colleges; the mother of 
thousands of asylums for the oppressed, the blind, the 
sick, the lame, the imbecile ; the mother of missions 
for the bringing back of the outcast; the mother of 
thousands of reformatory institutions for the saving 
of the lost ; the mother of innumerable Sabbath 
school, bringing millions of children under a drill 
to prepare them for respectability and usefulness, to 
say nothing of the great future. That is Christianity. 

Here is Infidelity ; no prayer on her lips, no bene- 
diction on her brow, both hands clenched — what for? 
To fight Christianity. That is the entire business. 
The complete mission of Infidelity is to fi.glrl; Chris- 
tianity. Where are her schools, her colleges, her 
asylums of mercy? Let me throw you down a whole 
realm of foolscap paper, and you may fill all of it with 
the names of her beneficent institutions, the colleges, 
and the asylums, the institutions of mercy and of 
learning, founded by Infidelity, pronounced against 
God and the Christian religion, and yet in favor ot 
making the world better," but you will say : I need 
not so much paper for that catalogue, as there is 
naught to be recorded. 

Josh Billings says : "When I hear a noisy infidel 
proclaiming his unbelief, I wonder if he will send 
for some infidel to come and see him die. I guess 
not. He will be more likely to send for the orthodox 
man who engineers the little brick church just around 
the corner." 

Infidelity is willing to deprive us of our faith in 



Infidelity offers no Stibstitute. 53 

God, and gives us nothing in the place of it. We 
cannot be infidels, because Infidelity has no good 
substitute for the consolation it proposes to take away. 
You know there are millions of people who get their 
chief consolation from the Bible. What would you 
think of a crusade of this sort? Suppose a man 
should resolve that he would organize a conspiracy 
to destroy all the medicines from all the apothecaries 
and from all the hospitals of the earth. The work 
is done. The medicines are taken, and they are 
thrown into the river, or the lake, or the sea. A 
patient wakes up at midnight in a paroxysm of dis- 
tress, and wants an anodyne. ''Oh," says the nurse, 
"the anodynes are all destroyed ; we have no drops 
to give you, but instead of that, I'll read you a book 
on the absurdities of morphine, and on the absurdities 
of all remedies." But the man continues to writhe 
in pain, and the nurse says: 'T'll continue to read 
some discourses on anodynes, the crudities of ano- 
dynes, the indecencies of anodynes, the absurdities 
of anodynes. For your groan I'll give you a laugh." 
These words of mockery will certainly not soothe 
the agonizing pains of the suffering. To physical 
discomfort such treatment would add spiritual torture. 
Unbelief in the Christian God brings no comfort but 
much of distress to the dying soul. This condition is 
expressed well in the message which David Hume's 
mother sent to her son from her death bed: ''My 
son, you have taken away my religion ; now tell me 
something to comfort me." The doubt of the agnostic, 
atheist, and infidel : the self-constituted theories of 



54 Christianity has Coj7ifort in Death. 

the theist, deist, and pantheist ; the speculative im- 
becility of the theosophist are equally incapable of 
bringing comfort to the dying soul. This can be 
done by the Christian religion alone. Christ alone 
has conquered death in that He died and arose agai« 
victorious. With faith in Him we can say: "I know 
that my Redeemer liveth," (Job. 19:25) and ''yea, 
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me. ' 
(Ps. 23:4). The Christian alone can say, "O death, 
where are thy plagues ? O Sheol, where is thy destruc- 
tion?" (Hos, 13:14) and "O death, where is thy vic- 
tory? O death, where is thy sting? Thanks be 

to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." (I Cor. 15:55-57). 

Death levels the highest mountains with the lowest 
valleys. He mowes down the fairest lillies as well 
as the foulest thistles. The robes of illustrious princes, 
and the rags of the homely peasants, are both laid 
aside in the wardrobe of the grave. But there .s a 
distinction at this juncture between the ungodly and 
the Christian. The one goes down to darkness and 
despair ; the other rises to light and liberty. As at 
the setting of the sun it appears of greater magnitude, 
and its beams of richer gold, than when it is in the 
zenith; so a dying believer jS usually richer in exper- 
ience, stronger in grace, and brighter in his evidences 
for heaven, than a living one. 

Allow me, ere I draw this address to a close, to 
make a death-bed comparison between the unbeliever 
and the Christian. Let us first take an excursion 



Unbelief m the Hour of Death. 55 

through the wards of the ungodly: Thomas Hobbes, 
whose philosophical views presents a psychology and 
a code of morals utterly antagonistic, not only to 
Christianity, but to religion in general, said on his 
death-bed: "I am taking a fearful leap into the 
dark." From the lips of William Pope we hear the 
following words of despair : 'T long to die, that I 
may be in the place of perdition, that I may know the 
worst of it. My damnation is sealed." Let us take 
courage and proceed further towards the gates of hell. 
We are standing where darkness and gloom seem to 
have excluded all light, as we hear the dying words 
of the eminent French deist, Voltaire : "I must die 
^abandoned of God and of man." Yet a little step 
forward and we are at the very portal of despair, 
whence come the words of Sir Francis Newport: 
"Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell." This gives too 
much of bitterness, and we can go no further, as the 
sights and the scenes are too horrible. 

Turning from the horror of the ward of the unbe- 
lievers, we pay our next visit in that of the Christian. 
Joseph Addison, the essayist, Christian statesman, and 
hymnwriter said as he was dying: "See, how calm 
a Christian can die!" And Richard Baxter: "I be- 
lieve, I believe. I am almost well. Lord teach us 
how to die." And Rutherford : *T have got the 
victory, and Christ is holding out both hands to em- 
brace me." J. Harvey feels at the point of death that 
"the greatest conflict is over; all is done. To live is 
Christ, but to die is gain." As we proceed up the 
ward, we feel that we are coming closer to the pearly 



5H Faith 171 the Hour of Death. 

gate and golden. There lies Benjamin Abbott, almost 
ready to enter in, as he joyously exclaims : "Glory to 
God, I see heaven open before me." And venerable 
Bede says in his last moment: "Glory be to the 
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." At 
that moment, Payson tells us that "the Celestial City 
i-s now full in my view." 

My dear young friends, we have now made a 
brief review. Would to God, that I could press the 
question of life and death forcibly upon your minds ! 
Do you not wish that you might die the death of the 
righteous, and that your last end might be like unto 
his? If so, you must live the life of the believer. God 
grant that you to-day may chose to serve the Lord, 
that your life might be ended with a grand "Alleluiah," 
or a "Doxology," as it blends with the ocean of Eter- 
nity ! 




THE BIBLE AS THE BELIEVERS SEE IT. 




IN a former address I referred you to some 
of the testimonies given the Bible and 
Christian rehgion by its enemies. In this 
address I shall call forth from history both 
sacred and secular sayings of great men 
that prove them to be confessors of Christ. 
It has often been sneeringly said, that 
it is all right for children, women, and 
weak, uneducated men to "get religion." 
It has also been added that men of common 
sense, sound judgment and erudition, will not waste 
their time at religion. Some one has even been bold 
enough to tell the big untruth, that all great minds 
have been unreligious. I call it an untruth and not a 
lie, which it really is, as I know not whether these 
men made their statement from ignorance or malice. 
If maliciously said, we detest it, and if said from 
ignorance, we find no excrse for it. The statement 
that men of erudition as a lule are skeptic, is equally 
far from the truth. It is only a bogey intended to 
scare people away from the real truth. 

Our Norwegian author, Arne Garborg, is rather 
exaggerating when he says, that *'A11 great minds are 
religious." I do not believe in statements, that are 
too far-fetched, either in one direction or the other. 

(57) 



56 Uiibelief not Fashionable. 

The truth, however, will be : Most great men have been 
religious. 

I desire to show you that if Paul could say that 
"Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, 
not many noble, are called" (I Cor. i : 26,) yet there 
are among God's faithful few some that are wise, 
mighty and noble. 

Paul's statement does not deny this, but rather af- 
firms it. Before we have finisTied, I hope to have con- 
vinced you that not only few from these classes, but 
rather a large cloud of wise, mighty and noble men 
are on the Lord's side. 

After all, it is not fashionable to be skeptic as some 
have voiced it. I would rather say, that it is now a 
disputable question where the force of the argument of 
fashion lies. I shall show you that if you believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, you are sharing the fashion 
and the faith of the greatest men that the world has 
ever had. Friend, you need not be ashamed of your 
company. "The King of Kings rides before you, and 
He is followed by His generals and His marshals that 
lead the host of all the unnumbered faithful." 

Of all the kings that have ruled on earth, none is 
generally conceded to be as true and good as David, 
and none so wise as Solomon. That they were religi- 
ous men is a well known fact, and as to their testi- 
mony of God we need refer only to the Book of 
Psalms and the writings of Solomon. But these are 
not the only kings that have rallied around the cen- 
tral doctrine contained in the Bible. Among them we 



Alfred the Great. Olaf the Saint. Giistaviis Adolphus 59 

find Constantine the Great, and many of the other 
rulers of great empires. 

In his "History of the Enghsh People," while 
speaking of Alfred the Great, king of England up to 
901, A.D., Green says: "What raised him to his emin- 
ence was the moral greatness of his life. He is the 
first example in the Christian annals of a truly Chris- 
tian king, — a ruler that set aside all selfish purposes 
and personal ambitions to devote himself entirely to 
the good of his people." Olaf the Saint, king of Nor- 
way in 1030, said on his death bed: ''Praised be the 
Lord ! He has protected us against many dangers. 
I have had many enemies. God pardon them all." 

The personal character of the greatest of all Swed- 
ish kings, Gustavus Adolphus, who fell in the battle of 
Lutzen in 1632 while fighting for Christian principles, 
may be given in the following words : "He is one of 
the noblest and most beautiful phenomenon of history. 
He is one of the few that we can call truly great. As 
a statesman he was a genius of first class and in the 
art of war he was a master unsurpassed. But these 
qualities alone do not constitute his greatness. His 
moral highness, his nobility in thoughts and in deeds, 
and the strong religious feeling with which his whole 
character was sustained and which characterized all 
his deeds, count for more. His life-long attitude to- 
ward Christianity finds its expression in the words 
uttered by him, just as he rushed in to the hottest part 
of the battlefield of Lutzen. He gave the sign of at- 
tack as he cried out to his men: "Forward in God's 
name ! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help us to-day to fight for 



60 Queen Victoria. Samuel JoJmson. Shakespeare. 

the honor of Thy holy name." The late Queen Victo- 
ria, on sending- a costly Bible to the Prince said, 
"Tell the Prince that this is the secret of England's 
greatness." 

Friend, may it also be the secret of thy greatness. 

Samuel Johnson, previous to his receiving the 
Holy Sacrament in his apartment, composed and fer- 
vently uttered this prayer: "Almighty and most mer- 
ciful Father, I am now, as to human eyes it seems, 
about to commemorate, for the last time, the death 
of thy Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer. 
Grant, O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence 
may be in His merits, and Thy mercy ; enforce and ac- 
cept my imperfect repentance ; make this commemora- 
tion available to the confirmation of my faith, the 
establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my 
charity ; and make the death of thy Son Jesus Christ 
effectual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, 
and pardon the multitude of my offenses. Bless my 
friends, have mercy upon all men. Support me, by 
thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the 
hour of death, and receive me at my death, to ever- 
lasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen." 

The following words from the will of Shakespeare, 
written in 1616, will show us what side he chose: 
"First, I commit my soul into the hand of God, my 
Creator, hoping and believing firmly, that I only 
through the merits of Jesus Christ can attain eternal 
life." 

Dante, who died in 1321, is the greatest of all Ital- 
ian men of letters. He has given us the immortal 



Dante. Bacon. Coleridge. Newton. 61 

^'Divine Comedy" of the Vision of Hell, Purgatory 
and Paradise. In his Paradise, at the beginning of 
Canto I, we find the following lines: 

"His glory, by whose might all things are mov'd, 

Pierces the universe, and in one part 

Sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less. In heaven 

That largest of his light partakes, was I, 

Witness of things, which to relate again 

Surpasseth power of him who comes from thence; 

For that, so near approaching its desire 

Our intellect is to such a debt absorb'd 

That Memory can not follow." 

This is only a sample from the master pen. His 
whole work reveals his belief in God. 

To every student of English literature, the name of 
Francis Bacon, died in 13 16, is familiar. His political 
career is not by far as pure as desirable, yet his liter- 
ature brims over with sound judgment and common 
sense. In his works we find that this prince of thinkers 
says: "God has not wrought many miracles to con- 
vince the skeptic, as His works do it. It is true that a 
trifle of philosophy is probably conducive to skepti- 
cism, but the deeper philosophy brings the mind back 
to religion. Men must completely submit to God. 
We are all glad to believe the Word of God even 
though we do not understand them." 

Our beloved poet, Coleridge, says, "I know the 
Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater depths 
of my being than any other book." Sir Isaac Newton 



62 Statesmen : Axel Oxenstjerna. 

counts 'The Scripture of God to be the most subhme 
philosophy." 

Many of the world's greatest statesmen have been 
Christians. Here are a few of the many that might 
be quoted. The greatest of Swedish statesmen, Axel 
Oxenstjerna, was the right hand of Gustavus 
Adolphus. History can not produce a more unselfish 
and patriotic person in the time of adversity than he. 
Oxenstjerna was a man with an extended education. 
His Christian life is best seen in his morning prayer, 
which has been preserved for us. It reads thus : *'0 
Lord, my God ! I know and am fully convinced that 
Thou art my Creator, my Refuge, my Hope of Salva- 
tion, and my mild and merciful Father, who will not 
let the prayer of my heart pass by Thy ear, but will 
hear me. I, this day, and always commit myself, my 
family, my native country, and the holy Church in all 
the world, into Thy hand. Thy good Spirit rule us 
and Thy holy angles protect us. Grant what is use- 
ful to us, and what is according to Thy good will. 
Hold back that which is to Thy displeasure or which 
is detrimental to our body or soul. Give grace that 
Thy Holy Word may be preached undefiled for us 
and posterity. Grant that the Sacraments may be 
administered according to Thy institution, without 
misuse, and may it bear fruit in our hearts. Guard us 
from all false worship, herecy and offense, and keep 
all dissention from Thy Church. Give faithful preach- 
ers and teachers. Protect and keep them ! Bless our 
churches and our schools, and cause Thy Holy Word 
to light in them, and let our youth be reared in the 



States7nen : Patric Henry. Napoleon. Chateattbrian. 63' 

fear of God." Thus prayed one of the greatest states- 
men that the world ever had. The following is an ex- 
tract of Patrick Henry's last will : 'T have now dis- 
posed of all my property to my family. There is one 
thing more that I wish I could give them, and that is 
the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had 
not given them one shilling, they would have been 
rich, and if they had not that, and I had given them 
all the world, they would be poor." 

Napoleon said : "Alexander, Caesar, Carl the 
Great and I have founded great empires. But what 
have these products of our spirits rested upon? Upon 
power. Only Christ has founded a kingdom of love, 
and even to-day millions of men would willingly die 
for Him . . . The truth should encompass the whole 
world, — a such truth is Christianity. .. .This shows 
us all to the right place : The bosom of the Creator, 
God." 

Chateaubriand, the most brilliant of the Reaction- 
ists against the French Revolution, and the most illus- 
trious man of letters in his time, does fully pronounce 
his belief in God, a belief which even the fire of the 
French Revolution had not been able to consume. 
He says: "There is a God! The herbs of the valley 
and the cedars of the mountains bless Him. The in- 
sect sports in His beam. The birds sing Him praise 
in the foliage. The thunder proclaims Him in the 
heavens. The ocean declares His immensity. Man 
alone has said : 'There is no God.' It unites in thoughts 
at the same instant the most beautiful objects in na- 
ture. Suppose that you see, at once, all the hours of 



64 States7nen : Chancellor Bismarck. 

the day and all the seasons of the year — a morning of 
spring and a morning of autumn, a night bespangled 
with stars and a night darkened by clouds, meadows 
enameled with flowers, forests hoary with snow, fields 
gilted by the tints of autumn — then alone will you 
have a just conception of the universe." 

Chancellor Bismarck is certainly not justified in 
all that he has done. Yet, of all diplomats, he is un- 
questionably the greatest. His success as a statesman 
is best shown in his work of unifying the independent 
states that now constitute Germany. His religious 
principles may be inferred from the following: ''If I 
were not a Christian, I would not serve the King one 
hour more. I know not where I should get my feel- 
ing of duty from, if it were not from God. Deprive 
me of my connection with God, and I will be a weak 
man that to-morrow will pack up my belongings and 
go to cultivate my garden." From these words we 
infer that it was Bismarck's experience that it 
will do to be a statesman, a diplomat, and a Christian 
at the same time. Later on in life he said : ''The 
feeling of thanks to the Lord for His gracious as- 
sistance until now has developed into a firm belief that 
He knows how to turn even our mistakes so that they 
will be for our best." After the great victory of Se- 
dan, he said. "This is a victory for which I will thank 
the Lord. Bismarck, with his many faults, never the- 
less possessed a religion which was more than super- 
ficial. He says : "I can only hope for forgiveness in 
a confidence upon the blood of Christ. As a states- 
man, I am not sufficiently disinterested ; in my own 



Statesmen : Gladstone. JoJm Adams. 65 

mind, I am rather cowardly; because it is not easy 
always to get that clearness on the questions coming 
before me which grows upon the soul of divine con- 
fidence. Among the multitude of sinners, who are in 
need of the mercy of God, I hope that His grace will 
not deprive me of the staff of humble faith, in the 
midst of the dangers and doubts of my calling." 

Gladstone, besides being England's best prime 
minister and ablest statesman, had time, in the midst 
of all his duties, to step into the lowly hovel of a street 
sweeper, read the Bible and pray with him. If any be 
in doubt about this great man's view of religion, I 
take pleasure in referring you to a book that he has 
written, entitled ''The Impregnable Rock of the Holy 
Scripture." In the highness of this man's secular call- 
ing we here find a dept of true Christian manhood 
that in the Bible has found its whole inspiration. 

Speaking of the Gospel, Gladstone says : "Talk 
about the question of the day ! There is but one ques- 
tion, and that is the Gospel. It can, and will, correct 
everything needing correction. All men at the head 
of great movements are Christian men. During the 
many years I was in the Cabinet I was brough into 
association with sixty master minds, and all but five 
of them were Christians. My only hope for the world 
is in bringing the human mind into contact with Div- 
ine Revelation." 

John Adams, second president of the United 
States, says, "The Bible is the best book in the world. 
It contains more of my little philosophy than all the 
libraries I have seen." 



66 Marco Polo. Columbus. Livingstone. 

Marco Polo, the greatest Asiatic explorer in the 
fourteenth century, relates how he sat and told the 
natives of Kublay-Khan, Mongolia, about the wes- 
tern civilization, especially about the pope, the doc- 
trine and the ritual of the Christian Church. I need 
only mention, to recall to your minds, that Columbus 
undertook his perilous voyage on the merits of religion. 
It was the argument of the possibility of converting 
the heathen in the lands that he might discover, which 
persuaded Queen Isabella to undertake the uncertain 
enterprise, and not primarily that of discovering a 
new route to Asia. When Columbus, on his first voy- 
age, thought that he saw land, his men sang, "Praisa 
God in the Plighest." With his head uncovered, and 
his heart lifted in praise to the Lord, the first man that 
brought lasting tidings of the new world to the old, 
stepped on shore of what we call our native land. The 
last word of this explorer were : "Lord, I commit my 
spirit and my body into Thy hands." Not inferior 
to these two, but far superior, is the great African 
explorer and missionary, David Livingstone. We need 
no quotation from him to satisfy us as to his view of 
Christianity. His whole life, dedicated to the service 
of God for his fellow-men, shows that his greatest pur- 
pose was to live for Christ. In 1840 he entered Africa 
as an explorer and a Christian missionary. His whole 
career is a dignity of service and a nobility of sacri- 
fice. Faithful and consecrated to the last we find him 
on the 1st of May, 1873, with his face hurried in his 
hands, kneeling before his chest in the tent built for 
temporary shelter. Look at him in his kneeling pes- 



Leopold Rajike. Carlyle. Karl von Rittcr. 67 

tiire ! It is only the body : his soul has fled to be with 
the angles in God's presence, while his body was left 
in the center of darkest Africa. 

It is a notorious fact that it is the men inspired by 
the love of their fellow-men who have opened most 
countries for civilization. The love of God has been 
the motive power, and the temporal results have been 
the explorations of continents, countries and islands. 

The great historian, Leopold Ranke, says that, 
"In all history there dwells and is found a living God. 
Every day testifies to Him and every moment glori- 
fies his name." In writing to his brother, he said: 
"We both believe in a living God which is present with 
me when I wTite this, and with you when you read 
it." The great Eiglish writer and Historian, Carlyle, 
says : "A noble Book ! All men's Book. It is our first 
statement of the never-ending problem of Man's des- 
tiny and God's ways with Man on earth." 

Karl von Ritter, the father of Modern Geography, 
in speaking of dark hours, says, 'T know no other way 
than to flee to Him that is full of compassion. When 
I, free from all external troubles, kneel before His 
countenance and shed tears of repentance and humil- 
ity, a strain of new indescribable blessing comes upon 
me and after long darkness it again becomes light." 

In the middle of the seventeenth century we have 
two men that are great in the field of jurisprudence. 
Hugo Grotius may be said to be the greatest one of 
the two. His chief work, entitled ''De Jure Belli et 
Pacis," may be considered the basis of international 
lavv^. Chambers' Encyclopedia gives him the follow- 



68 Grotins. Blackstonc. Palcstirna. Handel. Haydn. 

ing characteristic: "He was a great statesman, pos- 
sessing an extensive learning. He was a profound 
and enlightened theologian, — perhaps the best exegete 
of his time. He was a distinguished scholar, an acute 
philosopher, a judicious historian, and a splendid jur- 
ist." He must have been a "monster of erudition." 
Among his many works we find his "Veritate Reli- 
gionis Christianje," a defence of the Christian religion, 
— a work which has been translated even into Oriental 
languages. While he was imprisoned at the castle of 
Lovenshire, he tells us, that the Bible was his only 
comfort. He, by the aid of his wife, escaped from 
prison and rose again to distinction. His dying words 
were: "In Jesus Christ alone I put all my hope." 
The other man is Blackstone. In speaking of the ob- 
servance of Sunday, he says: "It (the religious ob- 
servance of Sunday) imprints on the minds of the 
people that sense of duty to God, so necessary to make 
them good citizens." 

In the musical world religion occupies a very con- 
spicious place. The grandest, deepest, and most com- 
prehensive strains are those that breathe the purity of 
the soul that composes while it is turned God-ward. 
Palastrina put into music that breath of life which he 
breathed from the Christian life that he possessed. 
Handel's greatest pieces are those in which he gives 
vent to the religious life that fills his soul. Herder 
calls his ''Messia" a heroic composition in tones. 
Haydn, the greatest musician in the past century, be-, 
gan all his compositions with, 'Tn the name of God," 
and closed them with, "To God alone be glory." C. 



»?. Bach. Leo7iardo da Viftci. Rap had. 69 

Cruger gives Sebastian Bach from Eisnach, Saxony, 
the following testimony : "S. Bach has enjoyed the 
unique honor of being praised equally highly by the 
opposing factions in music. By all he has in the 
same degree been praised as the incomparable and 
unexcelled. Thus the two completely different tenden- 
cies of Mozart and Beethoven have found in him their 
axis for artistic thoughts. On the other hand also 
Mendelsohn and Richard Wagner call him their rr^as- 
ter." The music that this ''Master of Masters," as 
Beethoven calls him, has left us, best bespeaks his 
deep religious conviction and his heavenly aspiration. 
The first truly great painting that surprised the 
world, and still commands the admiration of the art- 
loving public, was painted in 1497 on the walls of the 
Dominican convent of Santa-Maria-Delle-Gracie by 
the Christian monk, Leonardo da Vinci. The subject 
of this painting is the institution of the Lord's Supper. 
The master hand that traced those magnificent fea- 
tures must have been guided by a heart that was 
aflame with interest for the object of his endeavors. 
It can not be the work of a skeptic, for it is the faith 
of a true believer that has been translated into art. 
Leonardo was inspired by his subject. Raphael also 
received his inspirration from religion. His Sistine 
Madonna and Transfiguraton, Liibke tells us, ex- 
presses the highest that has ever been granted art. 
Michel Angelo, the universal genius of the sixteenth 
century, has produced most of his greatest works un- 
der the direct inspiration of religion. His statue of 
Moses, so typical of muscular energy and holy indig- 



•TO Michael Aiigelo. M. Faraday. Aviphere. 

nation, tells vividly the story of Moses' first descent 
from Mount Sinai. His painting of The Judgment in 
the Cistinian Chapel at Rome, and his painting on the 
ceiling of the same place is, according to Liibke, the 
climax of the art of painting. When Angelo, at the 
age of seventy-two, undertook the colossal work of 
raising the doom of St. Peter's church at Rome, he 
refused all remuneration, stating that he desired to do 
it to the honor of God. In his will he wrote : "My 
soul I commend to God, my body to the dust, my pos- 
sessions to the nearest relatives. I recommend them 
and my friends often to call to mind the suffering of 
our Saviour." 

Michael Faraday, the eminent physicist, said of 
himself: 'T belong to a little despised company. Our 
hope is based on faith in Jesus Christ." Faraday ex- 
presses his idea about God in the following words j 
"When I consider the multitude of associated forces 
which are diffused through Nature — when I think of 
that calm balancing of their energies which enables 
those most powerful in themselves and most destruc- 
tive to the world's creatures and economy, to dwell 
associated together and be made subservient to the 
wants of creation, — I rise from the comtemplation 
more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the bene- 
ficence and grandeur, which is beyond our language 
to express." 

It is said of Ampere, another great discoverer in 
the line of electricity, that he had learnt by heart "The 
Imitation of Christ," by Thomas a Kempis. On his 
death bed he said: "I have doubted much and inves- 



Oersted. Werner. Da7'y. Ctn7>er. Hiwibolt. Limte. 71 

tigated much. Now I see God everywhere." Hans 
Oersted, the eminent Danish physicist, who laid the 
foundation for electrical telegraphy, on which S. F. B. 
Morse built his invention, said of Christianity: '*Chris- 
tianity does not only contain the most glorious doc- 
trine it also contains the immortal germ of all intel- 
lectual development." 

Abraham Werner, the father of Geology, was a 
pietist. Humphery Davy, the great chemist, called 
Christianity "The brightly glittering star on the hor- 
izon of life, that in the life hereafter becomes the 
morning star that sends its rays through the shadows 
and darkness of death." George Cuvier is called the 
father of scientific Zoology. He was a deeply re- 
ligious man. Beside his great work for science, 
Zoeckler tells us, that he was instrumental in or- 
ganizing 50 evangelical parishes. 

Baron Karl Wilhelm von Humbolt, the eminent 
statesmen, who is also called "our great philologist" 
said : "Science preserves the noblest acquisitions of 
men, — its highest temporal goods. But of what value 
is that compared to the firm reverence for the law 
of God!" 

Carl Linne, born in Sweden, (died in 1778), is 
called the father of modern Botany. He begins his 
"Systema Vegitabilium" with : "The works of the 
Lord are great, sought out of all them that have 
pleasure therein. His work is honorable and glorious ; 
and His righteousness endureth forever." (Ps. iii: 
2-3). At the close of the same work we find the 
following words from the Psalmist : "O Lord how 



72 A. Haller. W. Harvey. Cope?'7iicus. 

great are Thy Works! and Thy thoughts are very 
deep." (Ps. 92:5). On walking through his garden 
he used to say: ''Here I admire the wisdom of the 
Creator which always becomes manifest in new ways." 
Albrect Haller, the great hero of Anatomy and Physi- 
ology, as well as W. Harvey, the discoverer of the 
circulation of the blood, were both Christians that 
were praised for their highly religious lives. One 
week before his death Haller wrote : "O Gracious 
Man of Mercy ! I commit myself into Thy arms. 
Thou hast throughout my whole life sustained me 
by Thy incomprehensible patience and long suffering. 
O, grant me the assistance of Thy spirit, which can 
lead me through the awful valley of death, so that I, 
as thou my Redeemer, may say, Tt is finished!' Into 
Thy hand I commit my spirit." In the science of 
astronomy Copernicus towers up as the master re- 
former. He laid the foundation of our present system 
of perfect Astronomy. Not believing that the sun 
moved around the earth, he dared maintain what his 
observation had taught him, — that our planetary 
system revolves around the sun as a common centre. 
His infinite mind grasped the hitherto unseen, revolu- 
tionized the theories of the science and laid the foun- 
dation upon which that science still rests. In deep 
reverence of the living God this master mind said : 
"Who will not, if he reflects on the glorious order of 
the universe, which is controlled by His divine wis- 
dom, be lead to admire the omnipotent Creator of the 
world, in whom the greatest bliss is and in whom all 
things are made perfct. For the inspired psalmist 



Agricola. Tycho Brae he. Kepler. I'S 

would not say without deeper reflections : "O Lord 
how great are Thy works ! and Thy thoughts are very 
deep," (Ps. 92:5), if he were not by them carried as 
on wings upwards to- the consideration of the highest 
good. George Agricola, (died 1555), who is called 
the father of Mineralogy, was also a Christian ; but 
the one that put his science into a system was Abra- 
ham Werner, who died in 18 17. JNIr. Werner was, 
by his contemporaries called a pietist. 

Tycho Brache, who w^as born in Denmark in 1546, 
became the reformer of astronomical instruments, as 
Copernicus was the reformer of the theories of that 
science. His motto was: "Look up and look down." 
In speaking of his father's death he said, 'Tt is a bliss- 
ful comfort to me, that my father so gently and piously 
departed from this vale of tears to go home to his 
eternal fatherland, where we, as Paul says, have an 
eternal abiding place while here we are pilgrims and 
strangers." God grant that we all may have a blissful 
departure from this miserable life, for His Son's, our 
Mediator's sake. 

It was left for Kepler, (died 1630), to bring into a 
more complete form that principle of astronomy, which 
Copernicus has enunciated. In his work, the 
"Harmony of the L^ni verse," we read the following 
words : "O Thou Father of Light ! Thou that by 
the Light of nature awakes a desire for a light of 
grace in order that Thou mightest bring us to the 
light of Glory, — I thank Thee that Thou art my 
Creator and Lord, that Thou, through Thy creation 
has satisfied me when I was transported by Thy 



74 Leibnitz. John Loche. 

handiwork. Behold, now I have completed that work 
for which Thou hast called me and exhausted that 
energy which Thou gavest me. I have revealed Thy 
glory to men to the extent that my limited spirit can 
grasp Thy infinity. If I, sinful man, have written 
anything unworthy of Thee, or have sought my own 
honor, then grant Thy gracious pardon." 

Leibnitz, who is termed the "Father of Philos- 
ophy," was a great jurist, mathematician, statesman, 
and theologian. Chambers tells us in his Encyclo- 
paedia that he took active part in the theological dis- 
cussions of the time. He conducted a protracted cor- 
respondence with Bossuet and Pelisson, two of his 
contemporaries that were famous theologians. From 
these letters, a system called "Leibnitz's Theology" 
has been compiled and was published last century. 

John Locke said : "To give a man a full know- 
ledge of true morality, I should need to send him to 
no other book then the New Testament." "We count 
the scripture of God to be the most sublime philos- 
ophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the 
Bible than in any profane history whatever." In his 
letter to Bentley he disproves materialism and proves 
that all creation is an indisputable evidence of the 
omniscient and loving God. The grand view, that this 
grand man had of the world served only to give him 
a grander view of the great Creator of the Universe. 

There is one man whom we all love, whose name 
we have not yet mentioned. The nation is still bowed 
in grief at his untimely death. His memory is sacred 
to all true Americans, irrespective of nationality and 



IVilliain McKi7iley. 75 

parti distinctions. On Sept. 5th, of this year, Pres- 
ident McKinley became the victim of an heartless as- 
sassin, and the noble statesman lay at the point of 
death. For one week the whole nation is held in an 
agony of suspense. Doubt yields to hope and hope to 
assurance that the president shall recover. But alas ! 
Gangrene has wrought its fatal work. He dies ; and 
as his head sinks back on the pillow, he commends 
his soul into the hand of God, as he whispers : "It 
is God's zi'ay. His zvill be done." As he crossed the 
river of the cold waters and as he was surrounded 
by the shadows of death, he still sang in a faint voice 
that seemed almost to come from the world beyond : 
"Nearer My God To Thee.'' The head rested firmly 
against its support ; but the soul had mounted on 
angel wings to God's kingdom of glory. My friend, 
I hope that you do not call that death. That is an 
autumnal sunset. That is a crystalline river pouring 
into a crystal sea. That is the solo of human life 
overpowered by alleluiah chorus. That is a King's 
coronation. That is heaven ! He has left us the 
results of his work as a statesman. But what is that? 
It will last only for a short time. The success of 
one is undone by the mistakes of those that follow. 
Such results are perishable. His is a nobler bequest. 
A life in a dignity of service and a nobility of sacrifice 
is closed with a death, which very plainly was only a 
transition from this life of mortal breath, to the life 
elysian. The grandest legacy, that he has given the 
world, is the testimony of the presence of God in the 
hour of death. The heavenlv halo around him while 



7(> McKifiiey. P?-mce Bernadottc. Coimtcss Scimjiiehimn. 

he is dying, shall bring hope into the hearts of many 
in the hour of adversity. Even though this nat'on 
shall perish as did the ancient republics ; even though 
his works as a statesman shall pass into oblivion, 
yet shall the dying words he uttered and the song he 
sang on his death bed be spoken far and wide as long 
as the world shall stand. It is an imperishable legacy. 
This ought forever to silence the mocker and convert 
the infidel. Of our beloved martyred president, we 
can say with firm assurence what Bob Ingersoll, the 
avowed infidel, contrary to his previous preaching had 
to say at the funeral of his brother: 'Tn the night 
of death hope sees a star and listening love hears the 

rustle of a wing Let us believe, in spite of doubts 

and dogmas, and tears and fears, that this is true of the 
countless dead." 

I might increase this list "ad infinitum" by quoting 
such men as Milton, Cromwell, Longfellow, Brown- 
ing, and a host of others whose names glitter as stars 
in the firmament of fame. On the celestial firmament 
on which the righteous shall shine, will glitter with 
resplendant glory the name of our contemporaries 
Prince Bernadotte of the United Kingdoms of Norway 
and Sweden, and countess Schimmelman of Denmark, 
two persons of high nobility that have forsaken all 
for the name of Christ. 

Thus we have seen a part of the generals of God's 
army marching by. If we were to let pass in review 
all the great minds that have entirely devoted their 
work to Christianity, from Paul to Paton, the Apostel 
to the cannibals of the New Hebredies, we should 



Behold the Cloud of \Vit7iesses. Tl 

behold an army of great men that would many times 
outnumber the army of Alexander the Great. Adding 
to that number the cloud of witnesses from the other 
walks of life, we shall have a canopy covered with 
stars of the first magnitude, which shall be far more 
great than that presented by the, so called, unbelievers. 
We are not here speaking of single stars scattered 
over the wide firmament ; but we are speaking of 
clusters so close that we can hardly distinguish indi- 
viduals from one another. They are so numerous 
that their individuality seems almost to be lost to our 
eyes and with admiration we behold the suns in 
clusters so close as the stars in the Milky Way. 
Looking up into this haze of glory, that covers the 
whole firmament, we say : behold the cloud of wit- 
nesses with which we are surrounded. 

Men and women ! I feel proud to share the faith 
of such men as, Paul, Angelo, Kepler, Grotius, Oxen- 
stjerna, S. Bach, Newton, Haller, Linne, Livingston, 
Werner, Wilberforce, Ritter, Washington, Bismarck, 
Gladstone, and McKinley. The whole march of the 
human race becomes God's March through the ages. 
He has his vanguard, the precursors or forerunners 
that prepare his way, making ready for and heralding 
his approach. He has his body guard, the immediate 
attendants that signalize his actual advance, bear his 
banners, and execute his will. He has his rear guard, 
the resultant movements consequent upon and com- 
plimentary to the rest. 

The impregnable phalanx of the army of God in 
its march through the ages, shows that the doctrins 



78 Need the Believer be Ashaiiied of his Couipany? 

that was once for the "Jews an offence and for the 
Greeks a folly," counts among its adherents men 
whose greatness has been unquestioned by all. At 
the cross of Christ we have beheld kneeling the fathers 
of Sciences, the founders and rulers of Empires, the 
leaders of thought, and the explorers of worlds. 

Dare we say that all these great men have been 
deluded and that their belief in Christ has been due 
to ignorance? When these have knelt at the cross 
of Christ, shall we, that are so small and insignificant 
when compared with them, feel ashamed to step into 
the same ranks ? No, and a thousand times no ! For 
why should we be ashamed of Christ? "Every one 
therefore who shall confess me before men, him will 
I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. 
But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I 
also deny before my Father who is in heaven." 
(Math. 10:32-33). 

"Ashamed of Jesus ! sooner far 

Let evening blush to own a star ; 

He sheds the beams of light divine 
O'er this benighted soul of mine. 

Ashamed of Jesus ! that dear friend 
On whom my hopes of heaven depend ! 

No, when I blush, be this my shame, 
That I no more revere His name." 



^ 



THE SUNDAY QUESTION. 




"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it 
holy." (Ex. 20:8.) 

/■\ HIS is one of the commandments of the 
JL decalogue. The Sabbath Day for the Old 

Dispensation was the seventh day of the 
week, and if a literal interpretation, and 
application to our present conditions is to 
be insisted on, we are still certainly obliged 
to conform at least to the Jewish sabbath 
ordinances. In the mind of the average man 
there is in this respect a great confusion. 
They think that if a literal interpretation 
and a transfer of the Sabbath law to our Sunday be not 
made, the moral foundation of the commandment is 
shaken. They do not stop to think that the third com- 
mandment is to be kept only as far as it is moral, not 
so far as it is particular. It is moral in enjoining 
some periodic devotion of ourselves to God's service ; 
it is positive in designating the seventh day and some 
particular manner of observing it. 

There have been many views as to the Sabbath. 
I shall mention only three : Sabbatarian, dominical or 
ecclesiastical, and divine ecclesiastical. 

The Sabbatarian view is thus stated by the Domini- 
cals : "The Sabbatarian would introduce Judaism 
into the Christian Church, revive ordinances which 

^ (79) 



80 Sabbatarian a7id Methodistic Views. 

have long since passed away, impose upon conscience 
burdens which the Jews found too heavy to be borne, 
call acts by the name of sins, which God hath not so 
called; in fact, against the advice of St. Paul, submit 
to be judged in respect of Sabbath days." This view 
is also held by Alcuin, who remarks that the observa- 
tion of the former Sabbath had been very fitly trans- 
ferred to the Lord's Day, and Bernhard from Clair- 
vaux grounds the observance of the Lord's Day on the 
third commandment. 

The Methodistic view of the Lord's Day shades 
much into this. It is quite definitely stated in the 
pastoral address of the Centennial Conference of the 
Methodists in America, from which I quote : "A spirit- 
ual church without a Sabbath is an impossibility. God 
has consecrated one-seventh of our days to rest and 
worship. The law enjoining its observance is both 
positive and moral, imbedded in the Decalogue, en- 
forced in the New Testament, and interpreted and 
illustrated in the practice of the Primitive Church." 
To show how this theory operates in practice, I quote 
the Earl of Stanhope : "Of one clergyman, Mr. 
Grimshaw, who joined the Methodists, and is much 
extolled by them, it is related by his panegyrist, 'He 
endeavored to suppress the generally prevailing cus- 
tom in country places during the summer, of walking 
in the fields on the Lord's Day, between the services, 
or in the evening in companies. He not only bore 
his testimony against it from the pulpit, but recon- 
oltered the fields in person to detect and reprove delin- 
quents.' " 



Dominical LVid D. Ecclesiastical I'iczus. ^^lug. Conf. 81 

The Sabbatarian gives the Dominicals tlie follow- 
ing description : "1 he Dominicals evidently cast a 
slur on the volume of the Old Testament; evidently 
set at naught the Word of God uttered at the creation 
and solemnly repeated at the beginning of the Deca- 
logue; evidently substitute for a divine foundation of 
Sunday one of mere human invention, — the authority 
of the Church." They maintain that the Sabbath was 
a sign between God and the Jews which expired with 
the Jewish dispensation. As for the Lord's Day, it is 
not in any sense of the words a Sabbath or successor 
to the Sabbath. It is purely an ecclesiastical institu- 
tion. It has little, if anything, to do with the third 
commandment. It is scarcely hinted at in the Scrip- 
tures, and it was not dreamed of till the end of the 
hrst, not perhaps till the middle of the second cen- 
tury. It is held by them, "That the establishment of 
the Lord's Day, whether by the Apostles or by their 
successors, was an afterthought, was a matter of Chris- 
tian expediency only." 

I have given the third class the name of Divine 
Ecclesiasticals, as this view combines the two former 
reasons for observing Sunday. In Augsburg Con- 
fession, Art. 28, Par. 19, this view is stated : "Thus it 
is with the keeping holy of Sundays, Easter, Pen- 
tecost, and similar holydays, and with the observance 
of church customs. They err greatly who believe that 
the keeping of the Sunday in the place of the Sabbath 
is commanded as necessary by virtue of church author- 
ity. The Scripture has abolished the Sabbath, by 
teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may drop away 



82 Augshuro; Confession o?i Sintday, Bihlc. 

after the Gospel has been revealed. But then, as it 
was still necessary to establish a definite day that the 
people may know when to congregate, the Church 
designated Sunday, which consequently seems to have 
been preferred, that they may have an example of 
Christian liberty and know, that neither the keeping 
holy of the Sabbath or any other day is necessary." 

This is not making the Christian Sunday ''a purely 
ecclesiastical institution." It is ecclesiastical only as 
far as the adoption of a day goes ; but it is divine, as 
far as the selection of that certain day is concerned. 
It is the Lord's Day. It is true, that for the holy day, 
there are no regulations laid down in the New Testa- 
ment, nor, indeed, is the observance of that particular 
day even positively enjoined ; yet Christian feeling led 
to the universal adoption of the day in immitation of 
the Apostolic precedent. It is true that the New Tes- 
tament demands for Christian liberty the greatest 
privileges. "Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat 
or in drink or in respect of a feast day, or a new moon, 
or a Sabbath," (Col. 2: 16), for ''the Sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," saith 
Christ. (Mark 2: 27). ''One esteemeth one day 
above another, another esteemeth every day alike '•' * * 
He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. 
(Rom. 14: 5. 6.) I imagine that when the Apostles 
selected the first day of the week as the day for con- 
secrated devotion, they "regarded it unto the Lord," 
and that when God on that day poured out the Holy 
Spirit, sanctioned the selection. Shame on those who 



New Testament o?i the Lord's Day. 83 

disregard and desecrate what God thus hath sancti- 
fied ! 

Sunday is a Holy Day, not in the same sense as 
the Sabbath was, but in the sense of the Hberty of the 
New Dispensation. It was on that day Christ arose 
from the dead (John 20:1,) and a week later He ap- 
peared to the eleven as they were assembled in a room. 
on the first day of the week. (John 20: 19.) That 
the first day of the week was afterwards set aside for 
worship is quite evident. "On the first day of the 
week when we were gathered together to break bread, 
Paul discoursed with them," (Acts 20: 7,) and the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says: "Not for- 
saking the assembling of ourselves together, as the 
manner of some is, but exhorting one another" (10: 
25.) This is a direct command that can apply to no 
other day but the first day of the week. In I Cor. 16: 2, 
we read : "Upon the first day of the week, let each 
one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper." In 
Rev. I : 10, we read that John 'Svas in the spirit on 
the Lord's Day." Had this been on the Sabbath, he 
would certainly have said on the "Sabbath Day," in 
preference to "Lord's Day," as the latter term had 
never been used to designate the former. The "Lord's 
Day" could not be the "Judgment Day," as it would 
be too inconsistent for John to address letters to the 
churches on "Judgment Day," hence, we conclude, 
that what John calls the "Lord's Day" is the first day 
of the week. 

The Bible tells us that the Lord rested on the sev- 
enth day from all His work. This was a rest in the 



84 Sunday not a Jewish Sabbath. 

enjoyment of a work which was well done. The sin 
of our first parent disturbed this rest ; thus, after the 
Fall there can be no hope for a true day of rest, as 
there can be no enjoyment in a work that had been 
well done, after it has been ruined. The creation of 
God lies in ruin, and a consequent state of unrest re- 
mains as long as sin rules. Christ came to take away 
sin that we might again live. He came to re-establish 
the human race, — a work which He completed, and of 
which it was said by God when Christ arose again 
from the dead by His glory, that it was well done. 
His Resurrection marked the complition of His work 
of Redemption and thereby the possibility of a rest 
was again inaugurated. After this a day of rest in 
the true spirit can be obtained. 

We must not confuse the present Sunday with the 
Jewish Sabbath. They are entirely distinct. It is true 
that the Sabbath in the time of the first Christians 
lingered on, as it had obtained a partial respect due 
to the Jew-Christians, who adhered to their ancestral 
prepossessions. It decreased in honor and lost esteem 
in the same degree as the Lord's Day increased in 
honor and became more esteemed. The Lord's Day 
was observed by the Apostles and their immediate 
followers, in consequence of the choice and sanction 
mentioned above. It is, therefore, a divine institution, 
and as such is binding on the Church forever. 'The 
Sabbath was a positive Jewish institution, ordained 
of God through Moses, and remained in right of its 
divine authorship till the Dispensation passed away to 
which it belonged. The Lord's Day, a positive Chris- 



Not Judaic. Chotniitz. Tcrtullian. St. Augustine. 85 

tian institution, ordained of God through the Apostles, 
remains in right of its divine authorship, until the 
Dispensation, to which it belongs shall pass away." 
(Hessey.) It is not necessary to resort to the Judaic 
origin of the Sabbath to prove that it is a divine insti- 
tution, because there are sufficient Scripture indica- 
tions and evidence of Apostolic practices, which ought 
to make it binding on the conscience of Bible be- 
lievers. In the ancient Church, it was never thought 
of to apply the Sabbath laws to the Lord's Day. This 
was not introduced before towards the end of the 
sixteenth centur}-, when Sabbatarian origin was for- 
mally proposed. There had, however, been a few sug- 
gestions in that line at the close of the fifth century. 
It was then considered a day of obligation on Chris- 
tian grounds, quite independently of any connection 
with the Jewish Sabbath. JMartin Chemnitz charged 
the Romanists with superstition because they taught 
the inherent sanctity of the Lord's Day ; and while 
he would prohibit such labors that interfered with di- 
vine services, he thought it a "Jewish leaven" to pro- 
hibit such as did not interfere. Chemnitz is very in- 
definite, and we should like to ask for informa- 
tion : "What labor is there that does not interfere with 
divine services, at least for the one employed?" 

With the exception of Tertullian, who turned Mon- 
tanist, about 202, A.D., none of the ante-Nicene fath- 
ers speak of the Sabbath as binding on Christians. 
None of them identify it with the Lord's Day, or trans- 
fer the spirit of the Sabbath to the Lord's Day. St. 
Augustine says : 'The Lord's Day is a Christian insti- 



86 C/emens. Cak'tn. Luther. 

tution. It is not, however, that we observe a time, 
but what is signified by it." Clemens of Alexandria 
says : ''The Sabbath seems to me by refraining from 
evil things to indicate self-command." 

The reformers took a very radical view of the Sab- 
bath. Calvin proposed to the magistrates of Geneva 
that the Lord's Day be changed to Thursday ; but this 
was met with a strong protest. In Luther's "Table 
Talks" we find the following: "Keep it holy for its 
use' sake both to body and soul ! But if anywhere the 
day is made holy for the mere day's sake, if anywhere 
anyone sets its observance upon a Jewish foundation, 
then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to 
dance on it, to feast on it, to do anything that 
shall reprove the encroachment on the Christian spirit 
and liberty." This expression, though true in prin- 
ciple, can very easily be misconstrued. With some de- 
gree of justice Fairbairn remarks with reference to it: 
"Their view of tne Sabbath of the third command- 
ment, as a Jewish ordinance told most unfavorably 
upon the interests of religion on the continent. There 
can be little doubt that this w^as the evil root from 
which chiefly sprung afterwards such a mass of Sab- 
bath desecration, and which has rendered it so diffi- 
cult, ever since to restore the Day of God to its proper 
place in the feelings and observance of the people." 

If it were true that "The Son of Man is Lord even 
of the Sabbath," (INIark. 2: 28,) and manifested it by 
healing the sick, (Mark. 2: 24,) feeding the hungry,, 
(Matt. 12: I seq.,) and that God himself, commanded 
circumsision on the Sabbath, Gen. 17: 12,) and com- 



Christian Liberty. Synod of Dort. Pontoppidaii. 87 

manded Joshua to march around Jericho on the sev- 
enth day, (Joshua 6: 3. 15,) how much more is it not 
true that we, who are called to liberty, (Gal. 5: 13,) 
shall then be free, as Christ was ? Before Christ died, 
He and His disciples paid some respect to the Sab- 
bath ; but never efter the Resurrection do we find them 
in the Synagogue or assembled for sacred services on 
the seventh day. 

Although we cannot subscribe to all the resolu- 
tions of the Calvinistic Synod of Dort, A.D. 161 7, yet 
the following resolutions are very good and definite : 
"(i.) In the fourth commandment of the law of 
God there is something ceremonial and something 
moral. (2.) The resting upon the seventh day after 
the Creation, and the strict observance of it, which was 
particularly imposed upon the Jewish people was the 
ceremonial part of the law. (3.) But the moral part 
is, that a certain day be fixed and appropriated to the 
service of God and as much rest as is necessary to 
that service and holy meditation upon him. (4.) The 
Jewish Sabbath being abolished. Christians are 
obliged solemnly to keep holy the Lord's Day. (5.) 
This day has ever been observed by the ancient Catho- 
lic Church from the time of the Apostles. (6.) This 
day ought to be appropriated to religion in such a 
manner as that we should abstain from all servile 
works at that time, excepting those of charity and nec- 
essity ; as likewise from all such diversions as are con- 
trary to religion." 

To the question: "Are no external works per- 
mitted on Sunday?" Pontoppidan replies: "Yes, true 



88 Physical and Intellectual Benefits. 

works of necessity that cannot be postponed and works 
of love that always must have place." 

Our obligation to keep the Lord's Day is not pri- 
marilary a matter of natural or moral law, although 
it is based on both natural and moral principles. 

The observance of the Lord's Day is of great con- 
sequence to man's economic life. Speaking of the 
benefits a day of rest brings to the physical and intel- 
lectual man, Taylor says: 'T am prepared to affirm 
that to the studious especially and whether young or 
old, a Sabbath well spent — spent in happy exercise of 
the heart, devotional and domestic — a Sunday given 
to the soul, that is the best of all means of refreshment 
to the intellect." J. R. Fare, ALD., says : "All men of 
whatever class, who must necessarily be occupied six 
days in the week, should abstain on the seventh, and 
in the course of life would assuredly gain by giving 
.to the bodies the repose and to the minds the change 
of ideas, suited to the day, for which it was appointed 
by unerring wisdom. I have frequently observed the 
premature death of medical men from continued exer- 
tion. I have advised clergymen, in lieu of the Sab- 
bath, to rest one day in the week." The French had 
sufficient experience of both a seventh day rest and a 
rest every tenth day, but for sanitary reasons she 
found it best to return to the ancient practice. 

Dr. Luthard says : "England and America are 
richer than Germany because they keep the Sunday 
better," and Dr. Eugene Bersier believes that the phys- 
ical degeneracy of the workmen in French centers of 
industry in comparison with the English and American 



Economic Aclvantages. 89 

workmen, is due in part to the fact that they have 
less opportunity to observe the Lord's Day. The New 
York Journal of Commerce states that it is not bigotry 
nor fanaticism to insist that one day in seven shall be 
set apart for peace from business cares and secular 
pursuit. In our judgment no people will prosper who 
disobey this law which is written in the very consti- 
tution of the material universe as well as in the Rev- 
elations sacred to many hearts. Macauley says : "Of 
course I do not mean that a man will not produce 
more in a week by working seven days than by work- 
ing six days. But I very much doubt whether, at the 
end of the year, he would generally have produced 
more by working seven days a week than by work- 
ing six days a week, and I firmly believe that at the 
end of twenty years he will have produced less by 
working seven days a week than by working six days 
a week." In Baylee's statistics, pp. 88 and 89, w€ find 
the following statement by Bagrall, an extensive iron 
master : "We have made more iron since we stopped 
on Sundays than we did before." This statement was 
made two years after they began closing on Sun- 
days. Five years later he says : "We have made a 
larger quantity of iron than ever, and gone on in all 
our six iron works much more free from accidents 
and interruptions than during any preceding seven 
years of our life." 

If the Sabbath is of benefit to the individuals, as 
we have seen, from the economic standpoint, both in 
the intellectual and material world, and as it is for the 
moral good of the race, which we shall learn from the 



90 Political and Social Advantages. 

succeeding, then it must also be an institution that 
brings a blessing to the state. We quote the words 
of Adam Smith, taken from his response to Sir John 
Sinclair : ''The Sabbath as a political institution is 
of inestimable value independently of its divine 
authority," and of Blackstone : "The keeping of one 
day of seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refresh- 
ment, as well as for public worship, is of admirable 
service to the State, considered merely as a civil insti- 
tution. It humanizes by the help of conversation and 
society, the manners of the lower classes, which would 
otherwise degenerate into a sordid ferocity and sav- 
age selfishness of spirit. It enables the industrious 
workingmen to pursue his occupation in the ensuing 
week with health and cheerfulness ; it imprints on the 
minds of the people that sense of a duty to God, so 
necessary to make them good citizens ; but which yet 
would be worn out and defaced by unremitted con- 
tinuous labor, without any stated times of recalling 
them to worship their Maker." {^Commentaries, Vol. 
4, p. 6^.) 

The Sabbath is an institution fraught with bene- 
fits for the social welfare of humanity. It is a boon 
for the home. We should look in vain for a truly 
happy home in places where no weekly holidav ex- 
ists, or where its blessings cannot be enjoyed. Ed- 
mund Burke says: 'They who always labor can 
have no true enjoyment ; they exhaust their attention, 
burn out their candles and are left in the dark. It 
is a noticeable fact that the family deteriorates as an 
institution where the Christian Sabbath is neglected 



Mo rat A dv ant ages . 9 1 

or profaned, and we do not look for virtue or comfort 
there where people observe no Sabbath." 

The observance of the Sabbath is a moral obliga- 
tion, as it reacts on the moral life ; incessant toil der 
moralizes. The want of Sabbath in France prevented 
regular industry during the week for want of honest 
men ; then employers sought to get such men as at- 
tended a place of worship. Superintendent of Police 
S. J. Thomas gives the following in his report on 
the Sabbath : 'T know from experience that persons 
who are in the habit of attending a place of worship 
are more careful in their pecuniary transactions; they 
are more careful in their language and more econom- 
ical in their arrangements at home ; they are more 
affectionate and humane, and in every respect superior 
beings by far than persons of contrary habits. Those 
who neglect a place of worship generally become idle, 
neglectful of their persons, filthy in their habits, care- 
less as to their children, and equally careless as to 
pecuniary transactions." Truly, as Blackstone says 
in his ''Evils of Popular Ignorance": ''A corruption 
of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sab- 
bath." 

Five years ago Toronto was very strict in its Sun- 
day observance, and the moral life was the far supe- 
rior to what it is now. As soon as they became less 
strict, there became a subsequent reaction on the 
morals. 

The French People, during the time of the Revo- 
lution, were aware that it would be necessary to 
do away with the Sabbath if religion were to be ef- 



93 To Religiofj. Oppositio7i to Day of Rest. 

factually put down. Despotic rulers have known well 
that to break down the Sabbath is to crush the spirit 
and the liberty which religious instruction and wor- 
ship inspires. Infidelity, desiring to liberate itself from 
the restraints of Christianity, strove to reduce the 
Lord's Day to the same level as other days as 
they were convinced that a day devoted en- 
tirely to rest and purity was the chief bar- 
rier in the way of attaining what infidels 
aspired for. Is it not a moral obligation for us 
to uphold and defend an institution upon which the 
morality of individuals and nations depends? If we 
are to be truly happy in society, home and self, then 
''Remember to keep the day of rest holy." 

It is surprising that an institution of such good 
character and with such moral consequences should 
find so much opposition. The so-called ''liberal minds" 
have worked hard to crush it in all the civilized coun- 
tries. We have referred to what was done by the 
Terrorists in France ; but other countries have not 
been exempt from similar attempts, though they have 
not there advanced so far as to gain legislative sanc- 
tion. 

In 1828 Francis Wright started an agitation for a 
free Sunday in America. In 1848. some Transcenden- 
talists called an ''Anti-Sabbath Convention" in Bos- 
ton. This convention said very little of what Sunday 
laws really were, as most of the time was occupied 
with arguments advancing the idea that the Sabbath 
was only for the Jews, and that keeping Sunday is not 
a religious duty. In 1867, the first meeting of the 



Ante- Sabbath Organizations. 03 

"Free Religious Association" was organized in Bos- 
ton by Unitarian clergymen. R. W. Emerson was 
vice-president for life, and prominent among the foun- 
ders was Francis E. Abbott. In the April issue of the 
Index 1872, Abbott advances ideas that show the 
spirit of the society. We quote the following from 
his editorial : 

"2. We demand that the employment of Chaplains 
in Congress, in State Legislatures, in the Navy and 
Militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other insti- 
tutions supported by public money shall be discon- 
tinued." 

"7. We demand that all laws, directly or indirect- 
ly, enforcing observance of Sunday or Sabbath shall 
be repealed." 

In 1873, Abbott called a meeting to organize "Lib- 
eral Leagues." This call was supported by hundreds 
of newspapers and was responded to by all states of 
the L^nion and also by European states. When the 
International Exhibition met in Philadelphia in July, 
1876, there was a decision that it should be closed on 
Sundays. To this the League protested, while the 
"Free Religious Association" did not remonstrate 
against this "iniquity." Inspired by the example of 
the "League," the association formulated protests 
against the Sunday laws of Massachusetts. 

The results of these agitations are the opening of 
Museums on Sundav afternoons, and, in general, mak- 
ing Sundav a dav of amusements. With reference to 
the Columbian Exposition, Congress passed a bill, 
making the closing of the Exposition a condition for 



94 Sunday at Columbian Exposition, 

the national appropriation. During the first three 
Sundays after the opening, it was kept shut in con- 
formity to the order of the Board of National Com- 
missioners. The popular opinion was expressed by 
the petition signed by millions, as well as by the sanc- 
tion of Congress, yet the Board of National 
Commissioners, on the fourth Sunday in May, per- 
mitted 15,000 visitors at the Exposition. On May 29, 
a judge of the Hebrew race came to the rescue, by 
declaring in the State Court that the contract with 
Congress was null and void, because the appropriation 
had not yet been fully paid. He decided that there 
was no excuse for violating the laws of the State of 
Illinois, which gave to the citizens the right to use 
the parks on Sunday. Amidst the Sunday confusion 
at the Exposition, a visitor had to feel that he was 
trespassing the laws of God and the nation. The 
Government buildings and many others were closed. 
Numerous exhibits, of which we may mention the 
Bible exhibit, were shrouded in white ; machinery was 
not allowed to run, the cheap conveyances were not 
available, and there was small opportunity for food. 

On May 24, 1876, all the national museums and 
galleries in London were opened for the first 
time on Sunday, but this was accomplished 
legally, only after a long debate, in which the 
Right Hon. William B. Gladstone said : "From 
a long experience of laborious life I have be- 
come most deeply impressed with the belief — 
to say nothing of a higher feeling — that the al- 
ternations of rest and labor at the short intervals, 



open i7ig of Museiwis in Lon don . 95 

which are afforded by the merciful and Hberal institu- 
tion of Sunday are necessary for the retention of 
man's mind and of man's frame in a condition to dis- 
charge his duties, and it is desirable as much as pos- 
sible to restrain the excess of labor upon the Sab- 
bath, and to secure to the people the enjoyment of a 
day of rest." D'Israeli said : "Of all divine institu- 
tions, the most divine is that which secures a day of 
rest for man. I hold it to be the most valuable 
blessing ever conceded to man. It is the 
corner stone of civilization, and its fracture 
might even affect the health of the people. 
The opening of the museum on Sundays is 
a great change, and those who suppose for a moment 
that the proposal could be limited to the opening of a 
museum will find they are mistaken." In February, 
1881, the Earl of Shaftsbury said: "Sunday is a day 
so sacred, so important, so indispensible to man, that 
it ought to be hedged around by every form of rever- 
ence. Its adaptability to the wants and necessities of 
society, the wisdom of its institution, proves it to be 
divine." 

In the application of the Sunday laws, there has 
been a vacillation between two extremes : the over- 
rigorous and the over-liberal. As one of the former, 
we may class the Edict of Clothair, which prohibited 
all servile labors on the Lord's Day, and those of 
Pepin from 791, A.D., that savored much of Judaism. 
In the code of the French Emperors we find : "To 
yoke a pair of oxen to a cart and walk by the side 
of it on the Lord's Dav shall involve the loss of the 



96 Over-Rigorous Stmday Legislation. 

ox; to do other servile acts, prohibited by canonical 
authority, shall render the offender liable to pay a 
fine to the clergy, and also to perform whatever penal- 
ty they may impose, according to the nature of the 
offence." On April 5, 1650, the legislature of Scot- 
land issued the following order: 'The magistrates 
to cause English soldiers to go along the streets, and 
those outposts above written, both before sermon and 
after sermon, and lay hold upon both young and old, 
whom they find out of their houses or out of the 
Church." 

Through all the Saxon and early Norman laws, the 
interests of the working classes are protected in the 
matter of Sunday. If a bondmand worked on Sunday 
by his lord's order, the lord must pay a fine of thirty 
shillings ; if without this order, he must be flogged. 
If a freeman work without his lord's order, he must 
forfeit his freedom or pay sixty shillings ; a priest 
pays double. Under Edgar and Guthrum (about 900 
A.D.) we find: 'Tf any one engaged in Sunday mar- 
ketings, let him forfeit the chattel * * * If a lord 
oblige his slave to work on a festival day, let him pay 
the fine." 

The Pilgrim Fathers left Holland for various rea- 
sons. Among the many, the one that they could not 
make the Dutch observe the Lord's Day as they de- 
sired it, was not the least. Then, we are not surprised 
to find rigorous laws with reference to Sunday in the 
Colony which they established. The following ex-, 
tract from the "Tender Mercies" of Puritanic legisla- 
tion in Massachusetts, shows that thev tried to esta- 



Over-Liberal Sunday Legislation. 97 

blish their ideas in the New World: "Whosoever 
shall profane the Lord's Day by doing unnecessary 
work, by unnecessary traveling, or by sport and recre- 
ations, he or they who so transgress shall forfeit forty 
shillings or be publicly whipped ; but, if it shall ap- 
pear to have been done presumptuously, such person 
or persons shall be put to death, or otherwise severely 
punished at the discretion of the Court. No one shall 
run on the Sabbath Day, or walk in his garden or 
elsewhere, except reverently to and from the meeting. 
No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep 
houses, cut hair or shave on the Sabbath Day." Such 
rigorous measures are not unknown in Church legis- 
lation. In 585, A.D., at the Second Council of Macon, 
the following resolution was passed : "No one should 
allow himself on the Lord's Day, under plea of necess- 
ity, to put a yoke on the necks of his cattle ; but all 
be occupied in mind and in body in the hymns and 
praise of God, for this is the day of perpetual rest." 

Even as early as the fourth century, the over-lib- 
eral view of the Sabbath was voiced through legisla- 
tion. In 321, A.D., Constantine issued the following 
decree : "On the venerable day of the sun, let the 
magistrates and the people, residing in the cities rest, 
and let all workshops be closed. In the country, how- 
ever, persons engaged in the work of cultivation may 
freely and lawfully continue their pursuits ; because 
it often happens that another day Is not so suitable 
for grain sowing or for vine planting : lest by neglect- 
ing the proper moment for such operations the bounty 
of heaven should be lost." (G. C. 86.) 



98 Ovcr-Libcrai Su7iday Legislation. 

In the seventeenth century the over-hberal view 
assumed a very definite aspect. In 1618, James I 
pubHshed the "Book of Sports" which was repubUshed 
by Charles V. Its object was to encourage those peo- 
ple who attended divine services to spend the remain- 
der of the Sunday after evening prayers in such ''law- 
ful recreations" as dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, 
May-games, etc. The proclamation was aimed at 
the Puritans, and Charles V recjuired it to be read in 
every church. The majority of the Puritan priests 
refused and were suspended. The republication of 
the ''Book of Sports" literally opened the flood gates 
of all kinds of licentiousness and iniquity. 

In Spain and Portugal multitudes rush on Sunday 
from the confessional to the bull fight. Towards the 
end of the Diet in Sweden, the legislators frequently 
sit on Sundays, and on Sunday afternoons ministers 
in gowns are frequently seen in the legislative audi- 
torium. In Norway little or no regard is paid to 
Sunday outside of church-going. The remainder of 
the day is often spent in dancing, theater going, etc. 
France is, perhaps, the only country in which infidel- 
ity has been able to establish herself by obtaining 
legislative prestige. They ventured on the tremen- 
dous experiment of proclaiming independence of 
heaven. Mrs. Gardiner relates that under the Reign 
of Terror the observance of Sunday was prohibited. 
On the first day of the weeks of ten days, feasts 
in honor of reason, of equality, of liberty, and the 
like, were held in the churches, from which none 
remained absent without risk of being classed in the 



Conservative Legislation. 99 

category of suspected persons. The hymns which they 
sang and the orations that were dehvered to the God*^ 
dess of Reason could not stay the hand of destruction. 
Social bonds were dissolved, the flood-gates of im- 
morality and crime were opened and misery unmea- 
sured befell the people. 

It is hard to avoid extreemes ; probably the most 
successful law is that found in Emperor Leo's Code, 
3: 411, 11: ''On the Lord's Day, eternally worthy of 
honor and of veneration, let no act of legal procedure 
be done ; let no debtor receive a summons ; let no 
pleadings be heard ; let there be no process ; let the 
hard voice of the public crier be silent ; let the plead- 
ers see their discussions interrupted, and enjoy a mo- 
ment of truce ; let the adversaries agree and repen- 
tance enter into their soul. We make, then, this day 
a day of repose, but we do not wish that obscene 
pleasures should fill it. On Sunday, let all theatrical 
representations, and races in the Amphitheatre, and 
lamentable combats of wild beasts, be suppressed ; and 
if the solemnity of our birth or coronation fall on 
that day, let the celebration be deferred." 

We must now turn from the theoretical side of the 
Sabbath question to look at it from the practical 
standpoint. 

Let us first consider Sunday newspapers. The 
first American Sunday paper ever published was is- 
sued in New York in 1825 ; but it was short-lived. 
Among the weeklies printed on Saturday evening may 
be mentioned the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette 
and Budget. This claims to be the oldest Sunday paper 

LofC. 



100 Sunday Newspapers. 

now living. It had only one issue a week. The New 
York Herald was the first American paper to be issued 
on seven days of the week. Its first Sunday issue was 
in 1841. In 1861 the Boston Herald, the New York 
Times, and the New York Tribune began to issue Sun- 
day editions. It is maintained that the demand for 
war-news was the cause of inaugurating the new edi- 
tion. 

In reference to how the demand for Sunday news- 
papers was started, I quote the Chicago Daily News 
of August 12, 1884.* It said: "The Sunday paper 
itself has created the only demand there is for it. It 
is made the vehicle for gossip, choice pieces of scandal 
stories, and the like, which fill its columns, and it is 
purchased and read because of these features. A Sun- 
day paper in Chicago containing matter that was pro- 
per and suitable for Sunday reading would not find 
a hundred purchasers in the city." 

In reference to the work on Sunday papers I quote 
Mr. J. T. Perry of the Cincinnati Gazette: 'The men 
who prepare and distribute the Sunday papers are not 
merely engaged m secular work through Saturday 
night, or even until Sunday noon, but the publication 
of a Monday's issue calls for the sacrifice of the re- 
mainder of the day. Type must be distributed on Sun- 
day afternoon ; copy must be prepared for the evening 
type-setting; clerks must be on hand to receive ad- 
vertisements; and reporters must scour the town on 



* This and subsequent quotations are gathered by 
Dr. Crafts. 



Sunday Mail. 101 

Sunday as well as on Monday. All are thus deprived 
of their weekly rest, and even the semblance of rest 
is destroyed by making all days alike." 

For these reasons and because the Sunday issues 
bring to the readers so much of what is filthy and 
bad, Sunday papers should be abolished. They pre- 
sent to us what is a conglomeration of the good and 
very bad, a sermon by some eminent divine is placed 
side by side with the most sensational trash and the 
silliest" pictures. It is not a happy mixture to provoke 
laughter, but it is heaven-defying impudence, which 
ought to provoke protest from all Christians. The 
Sunday papers fill the minds of our children with 
unholy ideas and help to keep our youth and even the 
grown-up people away from services. If for no other 
reason, Sunday papers ought to go because they are 
positively degrading. 

The question of the Sunday mail is also a familiar 
one. 

We appreciate the position taken by our National 
Government, because they have set us a good exam- 
ple. Yet, many are opposed to the present arrange- 
ment with the Sunday mails. The principal argument 
in favor of Sunday delivery is that some letters about 
sickness and death might be detained if the mails 
were not handled on Sunday. This argument is not 
very strong. In such cases, why not make use of the 
now speedy means of communicating news : the tele- 
graph? The government is willing to accommodate 
the public and still not rob its employers of their due 
rest. In Section 525 of the "United States Postal 



lOS Sunday Travel. 

Laws and Regulations" we find the following provi- 
sions: "When the mail arrives on Sunday h^ (th^ 
postmaster) will keep his post office open for one 
hour or more after the arrival and assortment thereof, 
if the public convenience requires it, for the delivery 
of the same only. If it be received during the time 
of public worship, the opening of the post office will 
be delayed until the services are closed." Section 974 
forbids the transaction of money-order business on 
Sunday, and Section 811 says: "Postmasters are not 
required to receive other matter for registration on 
Sundays." 

As to the question of Sunday travels, I quote Ben- 
nett H. Young, President of the L. N. A. & C. R. R. : 

"In the future operation of the Louisville, New Al- 
bany and Chicago Railway it is directed that so far as 
possible no work be done, or trains be run, upon the 
Sabbath Day. You will, on the first of May, stop all 
trains on the Sabbath, except the evening passenger 
one. Some questions concerning mail transportation 
have arisen, and if this train is not required I shall 
issue a further order concerning it. In case of perish- 
able goods or live stock, it may be necessary to do 
some work, but you will avoid this where it can safely 
and properly be done. You will in the future run no 
excursion trains of any kind, for any purpose, on the 
Sabbath. This order applies to camp-meeting trains. 
If Christian people cannot find other places of wor- 
ship, this company will not violate divine and civil 
law, and deny its employees the essential rest of the 
Sabbath to carry to camp-meeting grounds. I am also 



Stinday Travel. 103 

informed that a number of the company's employees 
have conscientious scruples against any work on the 
Sabbath. There are likely others who do not feel so 
strongly on this subject. Under no ordinary circum- 
stances must any employee, who objects on the 
grounds of his religious convictions, be ordered or 
required to do any service on the Sabbath. If any 
difficulties arise in the execution of this regulation, 
you will please report them to me for consideration, 
and you will also notify the employees of their right, 
on conscientious grounds, to be fully protected in the 
observance of a day of rest." 

The President of the Michigan Central Railway 
states in a letter written May 14, 1883 : 'Tf all rail- 
road companies competing for the same class of traf- 
fic from and to common points were in accord, it 
would be practicable to a very large extent to aban- 
don the running, of railway trains on the Sabbath Day. 
The chief difficulty is that in these days ol sharp com- 
petition time has become such an important element 
that if any railroad company would voluntarily cease 
its traffic for one day during the week, while others 
continued, it would lose largely thereby. Yet, for 
example, were each of the trunk lines to absolutely 
refuse to exchange traffic of any kind with their con- 
nections, from 6 p. m. Saturday until Monday morn- 
ing, it would be a simple matter for these trunk lines, 
as well as for their Western connections, to so arrange 
the movement of traffic as to practically do away with 
the running of Sunday trains. There is no question 
as to the desirability of prohibiting Sunday work on 



104 Sunday in Toronto. 

railways. The law of nature, to say nothing of the 
highest law, requires that man should have rest one 
day in seven. Is there any reason why a railway en- 
gineer or conductor is not entitled to his rest as much 
as a merchant or manufacturer?" 

The following resolution was adopted by the di- 
rectors of the London, Chatham and Dover line of 
England, in 1873: 

"That having regard to the many evils which at- 
tend the system of Sunday excursions — especially 
those to the French coast — and recognizing the right 
of our employees of all grades to the rest of the Lord's 
Day, this meeting of proprietors makes it an earnest 
request to the directors that they will run no more 
Sunday excursions themselves, and that they will de- 
cline to supply special Sunday trains to the National 
Sunday League, or any other persons or bodies ap- 
plying for them, except for such restricted convey- 
ances of passengers as seems called for on the ground 
of public necessity." 

It is generally considered to be an impossibility to 
secure a general observance of Sunday in the larger 
cities. This assertion is disproved by the past his- 
tory of Toronto, Ontario. I am sorry to say that 
Toronto has lost some of her maiden purity, which she 
had when the Sunday was kept as it should be. Then 
all commercial work was laid aside so that no noise 
could disturb the quiet of the Sunday hours. Modern 
recklessness has brought changes ; yet this city does 
still retain some of its former desirable features of 
Sunday observance. All sales of intoxicants to cus- 



Sunday in Toronto. 105 

tomers admitted either through front- door, side-door 
or back-door, does not take place from early Saturday 
evening till six o'clock Monday morning. On Sun- 
day, druggists are not allowed to sell cigars, candies 
or drinks ; most of the telegraph offices are closed ; 
cab stands are vacant, and livery barns have only a 
small force on service ; retail shops are closed, and 
even the milkman finishes his delivery at an early 
hour. • No papers are published on Sunday. ''The 
Toronto Sunday Worla" is a Sunday paper, but it is 
published on Saturday evening. Some five years ago 
only few street cars were employed during specified 
times on Sunday, and the people were well satisfied ; 
but a few that were opposed to the Sunday observance 
worked up a sentiment against it, by advocating the 
accursed condition of our American cities. Aside 
from this there was no call for the change. But these 
advocates could be satisfied only by Sunday street 
car traffic, and now Toronto suffers a corruption of 
morals. Before ferrymen were given a chance to rest 
most of the Sunday, and no excursion boat was al- 
lowed to land within corporation limits. When the 
first boat was landed in defiance to law and order the 
action met with a strong protest. Now, by repeated 
trespass, the action has become a common thing, that 
people consider to be a matter that "must be so." 
But the result on the moral life within the city has 
been most disastrous. Public taste has been perverted, 
and Toronto well demonstrates the truth "that a cor- 
ruption of morals always follows the profanation of 
the Day of Rest." Read the corrupted public taste. 



106 How to Observe Sunday. 

which can tolerate, without resenting, the obscene, 
heaven-defying attractions displayed on the theatre 
billboards and in the merchant's windows in the city of 
Toronto. Where is the virgin purity of a city, that will 
allow her children to look at such pictures, that would 
make even an American blush? 

The question how to spend Sunday is more easily 
asked than answered. 

It is certainly not kept holy or properly expended 
when demonstrations like those which took place in 
Chicago when 8000 workmen marched through the 
streets on their way to picnic, blockading the streets, 
so church-going people were detained from worship. 
It is not sanctified by running the retail shops open 
from early morning till late at night. It is not a day 
of work, trade, business or pleasure. I have been 
brought up in the country. Never did we find work 
so pressing that we had to continue it on Sunday. Even 
during the busiest season of the harvest time, we 
never did any work, and still, when harvest was over, 
we never were behind those who worked seven days 
in the week. 

Not even in the city is there any absolute reason 
why work shall be carried on through Sunday. Here 
there are surely no ripe crops at the mercy of wind 
and rain. It is often argued that shops must run Sun- 
days in order that they may meet their obligations. 
This is an argument based on greed. Why do these 
establishments assume larger jobs than they can finish 
on the specified time by working six days in the week ? 



How to Observe Sunday. 107 

There is no reason v;hy they should take a larger bite 
than they can conveniently swallow. 

Sunday should be the most pleasant of all days in 
the week. It should be the day for the home, during 
which family ties are cherished. With us it is com- 
monly a day not sanctified for the home but devoted 
to the strangers. The doors of our homes are then 
thrown wide open for social intercourse. This is mak- 
ing Sunday a day of toil for the domestic department 
of the home, and a day of social obligations in the 
place of spiritual enjoyments for the members of the 
family. This certainly strengthens the neighborly 
ties ; but it does not serve to unite the members of the 
family into a firmer union. It rather leads the affec- 
tions away from each other to the outsiders. 

Sunday should not be a day of amusement. The 
illegal Sunday baseball games are a curse to a com- 
munity and should be strenuously opposed by all law- 
obeying citizens. It is with satisfaction that we note 
the stand which President Northrup of the State Uni- 
versity of Minnesota took towards that member of a 
recent graduating class, who had taken active part in 
the Sunday baseball games. Would that all college and 
university presidents refused to sign the diplomas of 
those who desecrate Sunday by such pernicious pas- 
times ! 

I have often been asked what I think of Sunday 
skating. Skating on Sunday is improper because it 
takes you away from home. It further brings you 
into company with persons whose influence is 
questionable. On Sunday all bad boys and girls, men 



108 How to Obrgrve Sunday. 

and women, come out to take part in these sports, and 
many are the victims that have fallen into sin and 
misery because of the company introduced to on the 
Sunday skating rink. In the country, boys often 
spend Sunday in ball games. For those boys that 
have spent the whole week at manual labor in the open 
air, this is most certainly a crazy way of securing 
rest. Nature itself will revolt against this crime. 
This is a sin against the law of God, and a misuse 
of their own bodies. In considering Sunday amuse- 
ments, let the wasting profligacy which followed the 
republication of the "Book of Sports," tell us what 
would be the effect of reviving a Sunday of pleasure. 

We note with pleasure that many of our great 
men have taken a definite stand for Sunday observa- 
tion. Col. Hammond, a director and heavy stock- 
holder of the Burlington and Quincy Ry., said, when 
he was asked to grant on a Sunday an interview on 

business : ''Give my respects to Mr. and tell 

him that six days in the week I am superintendent 
of the Chi., Burlington and Quincy Ry., at his ser- 
vice, but this is my Sabbath. Good morning!" 

We are glad to note the Sabbath-keeping exam- 
ples of several recent Presidents of the United States 
— of Hayes and Garfield, in habitually walking to 
church, that their men servants in the stable, might 
rest and worship on the Sabbath as well as them- 
selves ; and of Grant, when ex-President, in refusing 
to attend Sunday horse races in Paris. With these 
we may appropriately mention the Lord Mayor of 
London for 1884, who refused to follow the usual 



Hoiv to Observe Sunday. 109 

custom of going to church "in state," on the ground 
that it woud impose unnecessary Sunday labor on his 
servants — an example full of suggestion. 

Experience tells us, that those Sundays are the 
happiest, the purest, the most rich in blessings, in 
which the business letter is put aside, and the pro- 
fane literature not opened, and the ordinary occupa- 
tions entirely suspended. Those in which the noise 
of the world does not disturb the peace of the soul. 

''Blest day of God ! most calm, most bright, 

The first, the best of days. 
The laborer's rest, the saint's delight, 

The day of prayer and praise. 

"My Saviour's face made thee to shine; 

His rising thee did raise, 
And made thee Heavenly and Divine 

Beyond all other days. 

"The first fruits oft a blessing prove 

To all the sheaves behind ; 
And they the day of Christ who love 

A happy week shall find 

"This day I must with God appear, 

For, Lord, the day is Thine; 
Help me to spend it in Thy fear. 

And thus to make it mine." 



IL 




SOME ECONOMIC FACTORS OF A 
YOUNG MAN'S LIFE. 

YOUNG men are advocates of the principle 
that all men are free and equal, and that 
none is to be called Lord or Master. 
They do not desire their seniors to meddle 
with any of their affairs. In such cases 
they readily make the following applica- 
tion : ''Mind your own business and I 
shall take care of my affairs." How many 
times have not young men from such self- 
conceit, which lead them to reject wise 
counsel, made the gravest mistake and brought upon 
themselves eternal ruin, and sorrow and despair to 
their friends and relatives. My friend, despise not 
wise counsel, nor reject the hand that in loving kind- 
ness is extended to your rescue. It is true that men 
are equal before God and the law ; but they are not 
equal in goodness and understanding. There are some 
to be led, and others that are to lead. Woe unto the 
leaders that do not lead rightly. God's injunction to 
Ezekiel still stands in force : ''So, thou, O son of 
man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of 
Israel ; therefore thou shalt hear the word of my 

(no) 



Economic Factors. Ill 

mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto 
the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die ; if 
thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his 
way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; but 
his blood shall I require at thy hand. Nevertheless, 
if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it ; 
if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his 
iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul." (Ez. 33: 
7-9). These words surely justify me in saying what 
I intend to. However, my motive is not only that 
of escaping the consequences of neglect ; it is much 
more a deep sympathy with, and a love for, the young. 
If I say something that will not be very flattering to 
your practice, don't think me unkind. I am only 
doing the thing that is kindest to you, by pointing out 
for you the dangers that you are exposed to. Your 
so-called friends, will flatter you and help you to en- 
large your faults, by stimulating them or by wilfully 
covering them. I desire to be your honest friend and 
uncover your faults, so that you may know them, 
and find a remedy ere it be too late. When I desig- 
nate dangers, I am aware, that both you and I are 
exposed to them. As a youth, in full sympathy with 
the young, and sharing alike their frailties, I feel the 
need of praying: ''Lord cleanse thou me from all 
secret faults." 

The primary condition for existence is time. The 
succession of our endeavors measure it, and makes it 
full of life and utility. Without work time drags 
along, or is spent in worse than useless idleness. 
Each day is a little life. Time is often said to be 



112 Ti?ne. 

money, but it is more — it is life ; and yet many, who 
would cling desperately to life, think it no wrong to 
waste time. You cannot more afford to idle away 
time, than you can afford to throw away money. Time 
wasting, how it creeps upon men, how secretly it 
mingles with their pursuits, how much time is pur- 
loined from the scholar, and from the professional 
man, and from the artisan. It steals minutes, it clips 
out the edges of hours, and at length takes possession 
of days. Emerson says : "One of the illusions is that 
the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. 
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day 
in the year." But we are not thus apt to consider it. 
''Time enough" seems to be the motto most commonly 
used, and well has Shakespeare said : 

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, 

Creeps in this petty day to day, 
To the last syllable of recorded time, 

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 

Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player, 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 

And then is heard no more." 

Our whole life ought to be lovely, and hence every 
fractional part of the unit should be so. We should 
think of time in the light of eternity, as Gilder does 
in the following lines: 



Time, 113 

"Each moment holy is, for out from God 
Each moment flashes forth a human soul. 

Holy is each moment, for back to him. 

Some wandering soul each moment home returns." 

Time is a condition that in itself is majestic and 
incomprehensible. We may comprehend what we put 
into it ; we may stay our actions or precipitate them, 
but we can never stay or hurry time. In its majes- 
tic incomprehensibility, it moves on whether we are 
good or bad, happy or sorry. There may be peace on 
earth, or war, or famine — yet Father Time, never 
stops to glance at us over his glasses that are never 
dimmed with age. 

"O, a wonderful stream is the river of Time, 
As it runs through the realm of tears. 

With a faultless rhythm and musical chime. 
And a boundless sweep and a surge sublime, 

As it blends with the ocean of years." 

To judge by appearance, the young men must have 
plenty of time to throw away. Wherever there is a 
quack on the street corners advertising his prepara- 
tion, there is a host of young men. A toy seller has 
a whole army of idle on-lookers trooping at his heel. 
A lady would be ashamed to disgrace herself by 
exhibiting such mean curiosity ; but young men con- 
sider it quite a desirable entertainment. Certainly, 
it helps you to clip away your minutes and,^ ere you 
know of it, the whole day has been spent in worse 



114 Time. 

than useless loitering. You will find young men on 
the street corners in groups, lazily hanging on the 
railing or seeking support against the more solid walls 
— a true representation of their dependent nature. 
There they are in large numbers at all times, some 
ready to receive instruction in the ways of wickedness 
and others to impart knowledge of the paths of sin. 
If we could stop this idle loitering, we should have 
banished much of the cause of subsequent crime and 
misery. Remember, that the young man whose time 
is worth nothing to himself, considers your soul at 
the same price. Shun that companion who thinks it 
no shame to idle away life. If he seeks your company, 
remember that he has neglected his duty to do so, 
and he is most apt to seek it only for his own gratifi- 
cations. 

With time comes wonderful changes. The 
following verse is descriptive of the marks made by 
its ever moving feet, as recorded on the sands of 
change : 

"Some are in the churchyard laid, 

Some sleep beneath the sea ; 
And none are left of our old class, 

Excepting you and me. 
And when our time shall come, Tom, 

And we are called to go, 
I hope we shall meet with those we loved 

Some forty years ago." 

As time carries us onward we see at the end of 
our sojourn in it that we are 



Tune. 115 

"Both heirs to some six feet of sod, 

Are equal in the earth at last ; 

Both, children of the same dear God." 

The Jewish Talmud has the following remarkable 
passage : "The day is short and the work is great ; 
but the laborers are idle, though the reward be great 
and the Master of the work presses. It is not incum- 
bent upon thee to complete the work, but thou must 
not therefore cease from it. If thou hast worked 
much, greater shall be thy reward, for the Master 
who employed thee is faithful in his payment. But 
know thou that the true reward is not in this world." 

The following verses I learnt while a child, and 
since then I have repeated them quite often : 

"We are but minutes — little things, 
Each one furnished with sixty wings 
With which we fly on our unseen track, 
And not a minute ever comes back. 

We are but minutes ; use us well. 
For how we are used we must one day tell. 
Who uses minutes, has hours to use ; 
Who loses minutes, whole years must lose." 

Remember that wasted time is worse than no time 
at all. "I wasted time," says Richard II, "and now 
doth time waste me." There is a great deal of phil- 
osophy in that statement. Have we time to waste? 
Tf we deduct the time required for sleep, for meals, 



116 Ti?ne. 

for dressing and undressing, for exercise etc., how 
little of our life is really at our own disposal. "I 
have lived," says Lamb, "nominally fifty years, but 
deduct from them the hours I have lived for others, 
and not for myself, and you will find me still a young 
fellow." It is not, however, the hours we live for 
others which should be deducted, but those which 
benefit neither one self nor anyone else ; and these, 
alas, are often very numerous. If we all took time to 
live according to the principles expressed in the fol- 
lowing beautiful poem, the world would be better for 
it. Then would there be peace on earth and good 
will among men. 

*T live for those who love me, 

Whose hearts are kind and true ; 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 

And awaits my spirit too ; 
For all human ties that bind me, 

For the task my God assigned me, 
For the bright hopes left behind me, 

And the good that I can do. 

I live for those who love me. 

For those who know me true; 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 

And awaits my spirit too; 
For the cause that needs assistance. 

For the wrong that needs resistance, 
For the future in the distance, 

And the good that I can do." 



Time. 117 

Time is not measured by years or the selfish results 
that we may derive from the use of it. Allow me to 
quote the following lines from Baily's "Festus": 

"We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 

In feelings, not in figures on the dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. 

He most lives, who thinks most — feels most — acts 
the best." 

However much time some young men have to 
spend in loitering, for questionable amusements, or 
for the mere sake of killing it, we find that they have 
so very little time for religion. A young man to have 
time to go to church ? No ! he is supposed to be too 
busy for that. He has work to do, calls to make, 
pleasures to indulge in, and inclinations to cherish so 
that there is no time left for him to care for his soul. 
Plutarch said : "There is nothing that so strengthens 
the heart as the religious rites and the services of the 
gods in the temple." But, young men seem to have 
no need for this tonic. Young men, take time to pray. 
Abraham Lincoln was a busy man, yet he says of 
prayer: "I should be the most presumptuous block- 
head upon this footstool if I, for one day, thought 
I could discharge the duties which have come upon 
me, since I came into this place, without the aid and 
enlightenment of One who is stronger and wiser than 
all others." As Daniel of old, Martin Luther prayed 
most when he had the largest works to do ; and when 
he was too busy to talk to his friends, he communed 



118 Time. 

for hours with the Lord. To the students he said, 
that well prayed was half studied ; and he practiced 
the principle, that well prayed was work half done. 
The late President McKinley, during the fermenta- 
tion before the Spanish-American War, found plenty 
time to attend prayer meetings. And William Glad- 
stone, England's greatest statesman, was never known 
to forsake his hours of prayer. He says, that through 
them he gained the strength necessary for his arduous 
duties. Mary, the Queen of Scotland, recognized the 
importance of prayer when she said : "I fear John 
Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand 
men." 

''Take time to be holy. 

Speak oft with the Lord ; 

Abide in Him always, 

And feed on His Word ; 

Make friends of God's children, 

Help those who are weak, 

Forgetting in nothing 

His blessing to seek." 

Take time to read the Word of God. That is the 
fountain of living water, and your soul thirsts for it. 
Drink from it the pure waters of life, and you shall 
learn to use your time to the very best advantage. 

"Thou truest friend man ever knew. 
Thy constancy Lve tried ; 
When all were false, I found thee true, 
Mv counselor and guide. 



Work. 119 

The mines of earth no treasures give 
That could this volume buy; 
In teaching me the way to live, 
It taught me how to die." 

Let us crowd into every minute something to keep 
in store. And let us be sure that it is something that 
will be for our physical, intellectual or spiritual wel- 
fare, or for the general good of others. 

"Count that day lost whose low descending sun 
Views from thy hand no noble actions done." 
Man was put into the world to develop himself 
and his surroundings. It is against reason and against 
the Bible to call work a curse. That man was origin- 
ally intended for work is clearly seen in Gen. i : 26 and 
28, where God says, that man should have dominion 
over the living creature and subdue the earth. In the 
second chapter and fifteenth verse the statement is 
more specific: "And the Lord God took man, and put 
him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and keep it." 
Obedience in childlike faith made this work a plea- 
sure, but by disobedience it was converted into a drud- 
gery. The work itself is not the curse ; but the ob- 
stacle, that sin produced, makes it hard. By cheerful 
application work will not be considered a drudgery, 
but will be hailed as a blessing. 

"There's glory in the shuttle's song; 
There's triumph in the anvil's stroke ; 
There's merit in the brave and strong, 
Who dig the mine or fell the oak. 



120 Work. 

I doubt if he who holds his head 
Where idleness and plenty meet, 
Enjoys his pillow and his bread 
As those who earn the meals they eat. 

And man is never half so blest 
As when the busy day is spent 
So as to make his evening rest 
A holiday of glad content." 

In work we find a sweet pastime and a safe pro- 
tection against all evil that beset us both from within 
and from without. It is said the devil finds no chance 
to tempt an industrious man ; but the lazy man be- 
comes his own tempter and saves the devil the trou- 
ble. The idler is the leper of society. He ought to 
be ostracized from it, that none might catch the con- 
tagion. Solomon saith that "the desires of the sloth- 
ful killeth him: for his hands refuse to labor" (Prov. 
21 : 25.) 'T went by the field of the slothful, and 
by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; 
and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and net- 
tles had covered the face thereof, and the stonewall 
thereof was broken down. Then I saw and considered 
it well, I looked upon it, and received instruction. 
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of 
hands to sleep : So shall poverty come like one that 
travelleth ; and thy want as an armed man" (Prov. 
24: 30-34.) A vivid description indeed. "Yet a little 
sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to 
sleep." This is a true picture of many young men. 



U^'ork. 121 

It is taken in the morning hour. At times I am apt to 
think that Solomon had taken his sketch on a Sabbath 
morning. Still, I would not accuse the author of Sab- 
bath desecration. Slothfulness, however, is very un- 
desirable at all times ; and you would not desecrate the 
Sabbath by it? Here is another picture. It certainly 
is taken in midday and in midweek. "The slothful 
hideth his hand in his bosom ; it grieveth him to bring 
it again to his mouth" (Prov. 26: 15.) I do not mean 
to insinuate that any of our young men are confirmed 
sluggards. But, judging from the many excuses we 
hear, I am aware that there is a tendency in that di- 
rection. Are we not often like the "sluggards that 
will not plow by the reason of the cold ; but rather go 
begging in the harvest, and have nothing"? (Prov. 
20: 4.) How often do we not hear that "There is a 
lion without; I shall be slain in the street" (Prov. 22: 
13.) Fear of criticism for not being able to do a thing 
as well as others may do it, is often the lion that 
keeps us from the work. A mighty small thing; and 
should it scare a young man of your ability ? I would 
be ashamed to show thatT was such a coward. Step 
out, young man, and look. You may not find any 
lion in the street. It only existed in your fanciful 
brain as a product of your desire for an excuse to 
shroud your laziness. 

The youth like an easy present ; and, to be sure, 
he can always find an excuse for making it so. He 
has excuses made to order by the wholesale. There 
is an inexhaustible supply. He can neglect his work in 
the summer because it is too hot ; in the winter be- 



132 Work. 

cause it is too cold; and at all times because it is too 
laborious. He is much like an old neighbor of mine, 
that did not consider it good for his health to work be- 
tween meals. You have time to squander away in 
listless talking, but you have not time to do even your 
own folks a favor. You have time to wait upon your 
so-called friends for hours, but you have not time to 
do a kind act for your most needy acquaintance. Your 
excuse for not having time is inconsistent with the 
truth and is unworthy any young man who loves 
honesty. 

I must pause here for a short reflection. Why is it 
that you have such a dislike for good books whose con- 
tents appeal more to your reason, than to your feel- 
ings, and call forth the noble side of your life rather 
than court your passions? Is it simply this that the 
reading and digesting of such a book is too much 
like work for your lazily disposed nature? It is far 
better for you not to read any book at all than to read 
those flashy books, that you admire. I consider the 
young man who has read little or no books far sup- 
erior in integrity and morality to him who has spent 
much time in the perusal of idle sensationalism. Here 
is a task that you should not neglect : follow the 
thoughts of great men. They will surely make you 
greater than you are. 

The young man and work. Yes, there are some that 
love it. They have become noble men. The average 
young man, before he has settled down either prepara- 
tory to or in his life's profession, generally likes every- 
body-else's work better than his own. Others' labors 



IVork. 123 

are easy; but his is hard. He often hates his own. 
His thoughts will not abide with his task. They fly 
about as feathers before the wind. By his conduct he 
is making life miserable for himself and others. By 
thoughtful, assidious application you can learn to love 
your work. What is now drudgery will then turn 
to pleasure, and apparent slavery will become per- 
fect freedom. 

Labor always brings returns. The law of conserva- 
tion of energy holds good in the moral and the spir- 
itual world. Here, as in the physical, we may not 
find the resultant at once. But some day it will be 
made manifest. But if we don't see the fruit of our 
labor at once, we are often apt to be discouraged, and 
ready to give up the whole thing. Due to the condi- 
tions existing in the world the "Try, try again" policy 
is the only one to be recommended. 

"The fisher who draws out his net too soon, 
Won't have any fish to sell ; 
The child who shuts up his book too soon, 
Won't learn any lesson well. 

If you would have your learning stay, 
Be patient, — don't learn too fast : 
The man who travels a mile each day, 
May get around the world at last." 

For every energy that you expend in the service 
of sin, you are thrusting the fatal dagger deeper and 
deeper into the oozing wound. You may think that 



124 Work. 

just one indulgence will not count. You may not put 
it down in the day-book of your memory ; but your 
nature has recorded it in the journal of personal rhor- 
ality and posted it in the ledger of justice. When with 
open eyes you shall behold the viles of your life, you 
will see that nature has posted correctly, and you 
shall be surprised to find each column quite distinct 
from the rest. Yet, vitally they are connected in such 
way that if you have brought suffering upon one mem- 
ber, the other members suffer with it. (3ne little sin 
thoughtlessly committed is the beginning. The side 
track seems parallel with the path of purity and jus- 
tice. It appears even somewhat smoother. By com- 
mitting one little sin, you enter the new road. On- 
ward you proceed. You imagine yourself still on the 
way of right. But it has gradually been bending off 
from the right course, and ere you are aware you have 
gone far astray on those paths of sin, whose issue is 
death. Turn back, young man, there is danger ahead! 
You have chosen the wrong way ; the end of it is 
eternal shame. By your continuation in it you are 
becoming more and more slack in your principles of 
right and practice of virtue. The act that you once 
shrunk from with disgust and horror, now rather 
pleases you. By degrees you have opened the flood 
gates of sin and crime. The one sin is the small leak 
in the dike which enlarges with increasing rapidity, 
until the devastating sea of passion, which has been 
held back by reason and dignity, rolls over yourself 
with its foam of lust, sporting on its briny bosom 
of death. Only a small hole, but through it comes 



irork. 125 

everlasting ruin, and eternal shame, to yourself, and 
disgrace to those that love you. 

If energy expended for bad things is not lost : so 
are the energies expended for the good preserved. 
If you, with your best endeavors and good intentions, 
cannot accomplish that for which you aimed, then you 
may still, by your constant application, develope 
moral bi-ceps. Your work has been for you intel- 
lectual, moral, and spiritual gymnastics. You have 
made a noble acquisition through the struggle. Moral 
strength and personal purity have become yours. 

If you work hard and your work does not at once 
yield the desired result, think that it is not possible 
for us to sow and reap at the same time. Apply your- 
self diligently to your task, and the difficulties will 
melt away as the dew before the warming rays of the 
morning sun. Newton's was unquestionably a mind 
of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by 
what means he had worked out his extraordinary dis- 
coveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking 
unto them." At another time he thus expressed his 
method of study: "I keep the subject continually 
before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, 
little by little, into a full and clear light." It was 
in Newton's case, as in every other, only by diligent 
application and perseverance, that his great reputation 
was achieved. 

Kepler, who is called the legislator of heavens, had 
a perseverance that knew no limit, and a fertility of 
imagination which was utterly inexhaustible. Adopt- 
ing as his main hypothesis the central position of the 



126 Work. 

sun, and the revolution of the earth and planets around 
this common center, he set about to discover the plan- 
etary orbits. To accomplish this he wisely selected 
the planet Mars as the object of his study and experi- 
ment. He commenced by a rigorous comparison be- 
tween the observed position of the planets, and those 
recorded on the already made charts. Some times he 
would find that the two agreed, and hope whis- 
pered that the true theory had been found ; but pur- 
suing the planet onward in its sweep around the sun, 
he would find that his theory fell through, — proven 
false, and had to be abandoned. Nothing daunted the 
ardent philosopher. He consoled himself with the 
thought that among all the possible theories which 
the mind could frame, one had been stricken from the 
list, and a smaller number remained to be examined. 
This was a new mode of research. In case the number 
of theories was not too large, and the patience of the 
philosopher sufficiently enduring, a time would come, 
sooner or later, when success must reward his labors. 
Thus did Kepler labor on, subjecting one hypothesis 
after another to the rigid ordeal of experimentation, 
nutil not less than nineteen had been tested with the 
utmost severity and all rejected. Eight years of in- 
cessant labor had been devoted to this work. He had 
exhausted every combination of circular motion which 
the fertility of his mind could suggest. They had all 
utterly failed. — The charm was ended and he finally 
broke away from the fascination of the beautiful curve 
which for five thousand years had so bewildered the 
human mind. He boldly pronounced it impossible to 



Work, 127 

explain the planetary motions by any circular hypo- 
thesis. This was a great negative triumph. If he had 
not found the curve in which the planets do revolve, 
he had found what it could not be, and released from 
all future embarrassment from eccentrics and epicy- 
cles, he now pursued a lofty and independent train of 
'investigation. 

Leaving forever the circle, he applied himself to 
the next simplest curve which is called the ellipse. He 
commenced his system of forming hypotheses and 
hunting them down, as he called his scrutinizing pro- 
cess. At first he located the sun in the centre of the 
longest diameter. Buoyant with hope the astronomer 
sets out to follow the planet around the elleptic orbit : 
for a short distance its motions were well represented, 
but it finally broke away from the elliptic track and 
bid defiance to the central hypothesis. But Kepler 
was not disheartened. He then shifted the sun to the 
focus of the ellipse, constructs his orbits, starts once 
more on the tracks of the planet, watches it as it 
sweeps around the sun. The elliptical orbit holds it 
as it moves farther and still farther. All its revolu- 
tions are performed, and there is no diverging, — on- 
ward it flies, — the goal is won. Triumph crowns 
the work of the philosopher, the orbit is found. Thus 
was accomplished one of the most important discov- 
eries which the human mind had ever reached. Surely^ 
labor will bring its reward. If we cannot reach the 
pinnacle of honor and distinction that Kepler has en- 
joyed ever since 1609, when he first published his vie- 



138 Money. 

torioiis results, we can nevertheless earn for ourselves 
the epigram : He did his best. 

One day an anxious father came with his son to 
one of the professors at the Medical Department of 
the University of Maryland, who was an eminent 
physician from the city of Baltimore. The father de- 
sired to hear his opinion on the intellectual capacity 
of the mute child. After discovering that the child 
had the sense of hearing, the father was asked the 
question : ''Does your child recognize the value of 
money?" To which the father replied in the negative. 
After dismissing the parent with the child, the eminent 
physician turned to his class of three hundred stu- 
dents and said : "Young gentlemen, the absence of this 
quality is an indication of idiocy." 

How a man uses money — makes it, saves it, and 
spends it — is perhaps one of the best tests of his san- 
ity as well as of his practical wisdom. Although 
money ought by no means be regarded as the chief 
end of man's life, neither is it a trifling matter, to be 
held in philosophic contempt, representing as it does 
to so large an extent, the means of physical comfort 
and social well-being. Indeed, some of the finest 
qualities of human nature are intimately related to the 
right use of money, such as generosity, honesty, jus- 
tice, and self-sacrifice ; as well as the practical vir- 
tues of providence, economy, and prudence. On the 
other hand, there are their counterparts of avarice, 
fraud, injustice, and selfishness, as displayed by in- 
ordinate lovers of gain ; and the vices of thriftlessness, 
extravagance, and improvidence on the part of those 



Money. 129 

that misuse and abuse the means entrusted to them. 
Henry Taylor observes, that "a right measure and 
manner in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, 
lending, borrowing, and bequeating would almost 
argue a perfect man." 

Some young men are desirous to do work "for the 
money there is in it." We certainly want to get the 
best returns for our labor. But this is frequently 
overdone to such a degree, that a person will stoop to 
do anything just for money. We do not want to dis- 
courage ambition ; but we desire to point out the dan- 
ger to which we are apt to expose ourselves by being 
over-ambitious for the sake of a few dollars. This 
desire most frequently leads to dishonesty, or it may 
only cause you to give up a good job, for which you 
are well fitted, to take one that will expose you to 
many physical and moral dangers, and for which you 
are not so well fitted ; and that just for an advance of a 
few petty pennies. Many young men have made just 
such bargains. They thought that they got a good 
thing, but they may not just then have been aware 
that they gave their soul in boot. ''Better is a little 
with the fear of the Lord, than great treasures, and 
trouble therewith. Better is a dinner with herbs 
where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith" 
(Prov. 15: 16. 17.) Remember, that the love of 
money is the root of all evil ; which, while some covet 
after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced 
themselves through with many sorrows" (I Tim. 
6: 10.) 

At the same time, allow me to give you another 



130 Money. 

warning. Is it your purpose to make some money now 
that you may have a good time when you spend it? — 
Truly, you worked hard to get the money, can you af- 
ford to spend it in a way destructive to yourself? 
Many young men cheat themselves by spending their 
hard-earned money at theatres, horse races, ball games, 
expensive parties, and numerous other projects of 
pleasure. Imagine yourself sitting in the parquette of 
the theatre or in the grandstand at the race or the 
ball game. You are accompanied by the dame whom 
fashion led you to associate with. In this, as in many 
other things, you are the sworn slave of fashion or 
the lackey of your own desires. However, there you 
are. Now make a few silent reflections : Your board- 
ing bill is nearly due, aye, long since due. You had 
to borrow money for the two tickets. The extra gloves 
and cravat a la mode, for the occasion, you likewise 
purchased for the borrowed money. And how about 
that suit of clothes? It had to be fashionable to suit 
the noble occasion and her dignified taste. With all 
these bills coming, you can still sit there and enjoy 
the sight and laugh at the silly. But your bills are 
coming. They must be faced ; but can you do it as 
bravely and as cheerfully as you contracted them? It 
may go so far that you will either have to declare 
yourself bankrupt, faint, or maybe turn to dishonesty. 
There is a tendency to too much high living and poor, 
not plain, thinking among our young men. They do 
not let their means define the limits of their expenses. 
I do not assert that any of our young men are of that 
class ; but, friends, I know that vou will have some 



Money. 131 

of that class as }Our occasional associates. Shun their 
company. Do not laugh at the fool, — he certainly is 
laughable, — but pity him. His mind ha? been over- 
balanced by a craze for fashion, and high living 
turns both his brain and stomach. 

I do not quite agree with Waldenstrom when he 
said that social distinctions in Sweden were almost 
blotted out, as the clerk dressed as well as the pro- 
prietor. I do not consider it a sign of social equality 
or well-being that the servant dresses as the wealthy 
master. Aye, there is truly little distinction now be- 
tween the style of the rich and the moderately poor. 
Both dress in highest fashion, use costly jewelry, and 
wear diamonds. But too often these trinkets are the 
tinsel that adorn a worn-out purse, immensely over- 
taxed. All has been laid on the altar of the Diana of 
Fashion. That such is the case does not prove social 
well-being, but manifests a sad lack of true nobility, 
frugality, and common sense. The middle class is 
trying to ride the swift steed of fashion, but the speed 
proves too fast for his financial constitution ; he be- 
comes dizzy and is precipitated into the quagmire of 
financial embarrassment. What fools we mortals make 
of ourselves by trying to fly without wings ! 

There is no quality which the improvident middle- 
class men are so sadly in want of as self-denial, — the 
ability to sacrifice a small present gratification for a 
future good. Those that work hardest we expect to 
be the ones that value their earnings most. Yet, the 
readiness with which some are accustomed to eat up, 
drink up. or wear up their earnings as they go. renders 



132 Money. 

them, to a great extent, helpless and dependent upon 
the frugal. There are those that enjoy sufficient 
means of comfort and independence, and still are 
found only a day's march ahead of actual want. 

On one occasion a deputation waited on Lord 
Russell respecting the taxation levied on the working 
classes of the country. The noble Lord took the op- 
portunity to remark that "you may rely upon it that 
the government of this country durst not tax the work- 
ing classes to anything like the extent to which they 
tax themselves in their expenditures upon intoxicat- 
ing drinks alone:" He might have added: and for 
tobacco. 

Talmage says : Tn the L^nited States the men chew 
up and smoke one hundred million of dollars worth of 
tobacco a year." Indeed, the use of tobacco is a tre- 
mendous expense to the nation. But it is not only 
an expense ; that would be justifiable if it brought 
good returns. Tobacco discolors the teeth, makes the 
breath offensive, excites the glands which secrete 
the saliva, and tends to produce dyspepsia, low spirit, 
pale face, and an emaciated form. To those that have 
not attained their full growth, the use of tobacco stunts 
the body and dwarfs the muscles, making them flabby 
and weak. Surgeons tell us that their experience in 
the operating room has demonstrated the fact that 
men addicted to the use of tobacco, suffer a lack of 
fortitude. 

There is a young man that has much money or 
makes fair wages. He can afford diverse pleasures. 
He smokes cigars ; to be a complete high-toned dude, 



Mo7iey. 130 

he takes an occasional cock-tail or toddy, attends every 
ball game, horse race, and is regnlar patron at the 
theatre. You find him at every place v^here people 
congregate, except at the — church. That's too simple 
and cheap for him. He can afford better things than 
that. But ask him if he has something to spare for the 
starving children of even his own sister, and at once 
you will hear that the board and room rates are so 
high and wages so low that he can not spare a nickel. 
He deserves our pity. He can afford to pay big prices 
for his own destruction, but can not spare a cent for 
his own advancement. He spends his money, as he 
is not beset by the devil of misery. At the end of the 
month his accounts balance. Far better had it been 
for him if he had deliberately thrown his earnings 
into the river to be hurried under its bosom, than to 
have worse than wasted it in fast living. Money is 
the cause of his ruin. Young man, let me give you a 
word of warning. You are not in the position to con- 
trol much money. Your father is wise in holding it 
back from you, for your own safety. Money in your 
hand is like fire under the control of an infant. It can 
give him warmth and comfort when held in check, 
but in nine cases out of ten it will destroy his very 
habitation and ruin his life, if given to him for con- 
trol. So money, if wisely handled, which your guard- 
ians are trying to teach you, can do you much good. 
But, if an abundant supply is laid in the hands of an 
unfortifyed youth, it becomes the power that destroys 
happiness and ruins health. 

We have now brieflv reviewed the economic factors 



134 Money. 

of the welfare of our }'oung men. Time is the condi- 
tion, work the method, money the product, and happi- 
ness and well-being the end. Well may we here quote 
the prophet : "Wherefore do ye spend money for that 
which is not bread? and your labor for that which 
satisfieth not? Harken diligently unto me, and eat 
ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself 
in fastness." '*Ho, everyone that thirsteth come ye 
to the waters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, 
buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without 
money, and without price" (Is. 55 : 2 and i.) 




THE YOUNG MAN AND SOCIAL LIFE. 




MAN is a social being. He has a desire for 
associates which is just as natural for 
him as is his desire for food. But this 
desire must not be satisfied without giv- 
ing the nature of the satisfaction a due 
consideration. Do not form association 
with anyone without first having ascer- 
tained, in some degree, the nature of the 
person in whom you confide. As we are 
guilty of harming our physical nature if 
we eat injurious substances, so are we responsible for 
our physical, intellectual, and moral injury if we do 
not exercise sound judgment in the choice of our 
associates. 

Young men are too often guilty of practicing an 
open policy in this respect. In my travels I have 
found many young men that are such ''social maniacs" 
that they can not endure even a short day's journey 
with only strangers, without cultivating an undue 
intimacy with some party or other. Such persons 
deserve our pity. They have lost entirely their inde- 
pendence, and are at the mercy of their own inclina- 
tions. Thus it is that so many become the fit subjects 
of unscrupulous men and women. Young men, if 

(135) 



136 Carefulness in Choice of Friends. 

you are guilty of such trifling, repent : You think 
that it is fun ; but remember that every indulgence is 
a breach of the friendship ties that should be sacred 
to you. We do not esteem very highly the friendship 
of such men that cultivate associations with flippant 
and flirting strangers. We all brand them as false in 
appearance ; and a false appearance is always indicative 
of a false heart. Avoid associations hastily formed ! 

Be careful in the choice of }our friends. If you 
choose the crow for a guide you must expect carrion 
to be your goal. Some men exercise great care in 
the choice of a horse or a dog. They will investigate 
its nature and training and even inquire into its 
j>edigree ; but when it comes to the choice of friends, 
they leave that to happen as it may. It is certainly 
sad, that we should let chance pick for us those who 
influence our life and shape its eternal destiny. Indeed, 
much of the happiness and purit\' of our lives depend 
upon the wisdom with which we have selected our 
friends. 

We have often observed, that it is quite commonly 
considered to be a fault with the young man if he 
does not cultivate a sort of intimacy with some young 
lady or other. Even at an early age boys begin to 
cultivate associations with ladies, beyond that which 
due courtesy and familiarity require. If he has not 
several "girls on the string" that he can see home 
from church or take to theatres, he does not count 
himself worth much, nor do others consider him to 
be "in it". . At an early age he learns to count his 
worth bv the number of belles that he has : and as 



Command Your Inctmatio7is. 137 

an Indian boasts of the scalps that he has taken, so do 
many young men boast of the feminine hearts that 
they have won. It is a deplorable fact, that in most 
cases, }-on can count upon a young man to stay by 
you in the church work only so long as his "social 
ties" draw him that way. Is it right that you should 
forsake your worship and your other duties, just to 
please your inclinations ? Is it not well to remember 
that there are .many "birds in the woods," but that 
you can have but one conviction? Titus is requested 
by Paul to instruct the "younger men likewise by 
exhorting them to be soberminded ;" in all things 
Titus is to "be an example of good works ; in doctrine 
showing uncorruptedness, gravity ; in speech manifest- 
ing soundness, that none can find occasion to condemn 
him, and that those that are of the contrary part may 
be ashamed." (Tit. 2: 7 — 8). But what has become 
of the sobermindedness of our enamoured young men ?. 
To speak plainly : if you notice a young man absent- 
ing himself from church, as a rule you can safely 
say, that there is a woman outside of the church in 
the deal. A little self command in this respect would 
be desirable. 

It is often said that intimate association with a 
young lady will do a man good. Yes, she can often 
make the young man better. Such associations we 
can not too highly endorse, — and yet, would it not 
be better that the young man had the moral strength 
to stand alone without such props? How much better 
would it not be for a young man, wdien he has reached 
the time for matrimony, if he can look back upon his 



138 Avoid Undue Familiarities. 

life and se that there are no "broken vows or pieces 
of rings" strewn in his path? Much misery is due 
to forming an alliance for life at too early an age. 
Go into many of our American homes and you will 
need no microscope to read the conditions that have 
come about, as a result of just such boyish thoughtless- 
ness. The whole life through, the family will have 
a desperate fight against poverty, because they entered 
family life before they were prepared to do so. Often 
this fight results in despair and ruin of one or both. 
The goldsmith that enters the profession before the 
expiration of his apprenticeship will make at most 
only a mediocre craftsman, while he that serves the 
full term will know all the out's and in's of the trade. 
So are they that are mature for matrimony surer of 
happiness and prosperity than those that let their 
childish fancies decide for them, what should have 
been decided by the due deliberation of the fulgrown 
man. Boys should remember that their minds are not 
mature enough to decide that question, which once 
passed upon can not be revoked. 

A great number of so-called friends have no 
scruples in making heavy demands on your precious 
time. Intimate friendship is something that is highly 
to be recommended ; but is it not needed that we 
exercise more self control to the extent that we make 
the duty to ourself and our home the first, and those 
to our friends second? How many young men are 
there not, that evening after evening, the whole week 
through, yes, probably every week of the year, have 
calls to make or callers to receive, and thus neglect 



Dangers of the Night. 130 

all duty to self and home ! Don't let your social 
nature get the better of you. Call on your friends ; 
but do not let your calls be too often nor too protracted. 
Solomon very wisely says, "Let thy foot be seldom 
in thy neighbor's house, lest he be weary of thee, and 
hate thee." (Prov. 25: 17), If a father and mother 
will plead with the boy to stay home one evening, 
too often they meet with naught but disappointment. 
I have known mothers to sit night after night wait- 
ing for sons to return from their nocturnal per- 
amibulations. They anxiously pace the floor ; the 
hearts beat violently and the bosoms heave with 
anxious emotion. Night has no rest for them as their 
boys are making for them the hours intended for 
peace and rest into the most miserable time of life. 
The clock strikes the hour of midnight, and to the 
anxious waiting mothers the hand has painfully 
slowly again nearly circumscribed the dial. Alaybe 
at last they come ; then the mothers feel a relief through 
the day ; but when night comes on, again they have to 
experience the same pangs, or else entertain a crowd 
of rowdies. 

Young man, you are recklessly torturing your 
mother and ere you know of it she will be laid in the 
grave too early, and that for your sake. You are 
doing a criminal act, and it would be only proper 
that you were brought to feel that you are commit- 
ting matricide. You say that mother ought to know 
that you are old enough to take care of yourself. But 
?he knows more about the world and your ability 
than vou do. She has known vou from infancv and 



140 Dajtgers of the Night. 

thus all your traits are very familiar to her. She has 
known the world long before you ever saw day-light. 
You overestimate your ability, but she knows that 
braver boys than hers have fallen as wrecks from stay- 
ing in company late at night. Furthermore you are 
very careful not to tell where you are going. She 
does not know whether you are at the home of some 
friend or out on the broad highways of sin. She 
does not know whether you are protected by the walls 
of a good home or exposed to the dangers of the 
bordel. For God's sake, young man, if it happens so 
that you must be out late, then let your folks know 
where you are. If they do not know where you are 
they do know that 'it is in the night, that many of our 
young men go forth to be lured by enticing company 
into billiard halls, drinking saloons, gambling dens, 
seraglios of vice, and on and on, to physical, moral, 
and eternal ruin. The night life of the young men of 
our cities and even of our smaller towns, is a perplex- 
ing problem. The night accomplishes the ruin of the 
day, and undermines the man forever, and as God 
*'set a mark upon Cain," so upon the forehead and 
upon the faces, and upon the entire frame God brands 
these lepers of lust that roam at night so that none 
can conceal their sin from those who are taught in 
the language in which is written the penalty of their 
guilt. Determined to have a good time we have known 
young men in a single hour of night to blight and 
blast the possibilities of an entire life time, and to 
receive in place of their virtue a curse, into which was 



Dangers of the Night. 141 

condensed the quintessence of all the aches and ills 
to which flesh is heir.' 

In Tennyson's "The Sorrows of the City" there 
is found the following graphic description of the 
doings in the city, especially at night : 

*Ts it well that while we range with science, glorying 
the time. 

City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city 
slime ? 

There, among the gloomy alleys, Progress halts on 
palsied feet ; 
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thou- 
sands on the street." 

Young man be w^arned in the beginning against the 
fatal delusions which seek to blind you to the perils 
of the darkness. Spend your evening with your 
books, in the companionship of the pure, in the midst 
of refining and elevating surroundings. In the dark- 
ness, do not go where you would be ashamed to go 
in the light. Have no companions to whom, if Jesus 
were on earth in bodily form, you could not introduce 
him without shame or embarrassment. 

''While speaking of the proper use of the evening 
hours, it may not be out of place to add a word of 
council concerning the too prevalent custom of remain- 
ing until an unreasonable hour when calling to spend 
the evening in company. All parents should have the 
rule — upon which many insist — that their sons and 
daughters are not permitted to keep company after 



143 Associates: "Participcs Curarum.'''' 

ten o'clock. This custom of late hours not only 
disturbs the peace and rest of other members of the 
family, but unfits the young people themselves for the 
next day. It often becomes injurious to health, and 
throws around such relations the air of suspicion, and, 
by affording easy opportunities for violating the 
proprieties of life, this custom often leads to such 
temptations as become a serious menace to virtue 
and honor." 

What sort of associates shall we then recommend? 
It is those that are designated by the old Roman name 
"participes curarum," — partakers of cares. Most of 
those whom you call friends, are not partakers of 
your cares, but partakers only of your contributions. 
They are friends only as long as you sacrifice, or they 
need make no sacrifice. They will not share your 
burdens. Their friendship is like that of the pups in 
the kennel. Epictetus says: "Sawest thou never the 
whelps of a dog, how they fawn and sport with each 
other, that you would say nothing can be more loving? 
But to know what friendship is, fling a piece of flesh 
between them, and thou shall learn. And cast between 
thee and thy child a scrap of land, and thou shalt learn 
how the child will quickly wish to bury thee, and thou 
wilt pray that he may die. And then thou wilt say : 
What a child have I nourished this long time? He 
is burying me. Throw a handsome girl between you 
and the old man will love her, and the young too; 
and if It be glory, or some risk to run, it will be on 
the same fashion." Paris was the guest of Menelaus; 
and if anvone had seen how friendlv minded towards 



Tnie Friendship. 143 

each other they were he would have disbeHeved any- 
one who would have said they were not friends. 
But a morsel was tiung between them, — a fair woman, 
and about her there was war. 

Our friends should not be such that will stay by 
us only as long as there is no occasion for contention ; 
but they should be such that are willing to sacrifice 
something for pure friendship reasons. As a friend 
you ought to know that it should be a greater privilege 
for you to give than to receive, and if anyone tries 
to get the best of you, know that he is not your friend. 
There are few friends disposed as John Alden who 
was willing to give to his rival, Allies Standish, that 
which to him was dearer than life itself. Few friends 
there are, that like Jonathan and David will stand by 
each other in persecution and anguish. Such friend- 
ship did not exist for the fun of it, nor for depravity 
and injury of themselves, but for mutual help and in- 
spiration. Then, as Emerson said, 'T awoke this 
morning with the devout thanksgiving for my friends, 
the old and the new. Shall I not call God, the beauti- 
ful, who daily showeth himself to me in his gifts ? 
I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not 
so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely and 
the noble minded, as from time to time they pass my 
gate. Who hears me, who understands me, who 
becomes mine, — a possession for all time." 

Closely related to friendship ties are also the young 
man's inclinations for amusements. The amusements 
you desire are those that your associates have taught 
you to like. Would that I could call out to all young 



144 Commissioji to Warn Young People. 

men and convince them that they must be careful in 
their choice of amusements ! I have been told by 
young men, that it is not the preacher's business to 
talk of these things. Young men, if you think so, 
you are certainly mistaken ! It is my business to 
guard }'oung men from evil. And woe to me if I 
do not ; for the Lord hath set me as a watchman unto 
the house of Israel. Young men, that have grown 
up with us in the church, are ours, and we shall not 
silently stand by as lookers-on while the devil invades 
our territory to carry them away. If I had a garden 
committed to my charge, would it not be my duty 
to pull the weeds and shut out the foxes that tend 
to destroy our tender sprouts ? Christianity is ridiculed 
and religion is scoffed in the circle of the wicked, — 
and they think it is their business to do so ; but when 
we want to retain our own or reclaim the lost ones, 
they at once say : Mind your own business ! Pathetic 
and horrible scenes are often seen in saloons. When 
a mother or wife in the agony of her heart comes to 
bring home her son or husband, then it is often said 
by the wicked: Mind your own business, old woman, 
and we will tend to ours. Then, as the bartender 
hands out another glass and puts the last nickel of the 
man's earnings and his family's support into the 
drawer, he has finished his business. The man has 
been robbed of his money, and then, of course, it is 
the woman's work to take care of and feed the wreck. 
Similar is the argument used against us when we 
raise our voices to speak against amusements. We 
are told to mind our own business, until the young 



*'In-Siinity " of Dance. 145 

men have been made wrecks, then of course it is the 
church's and pastor's duty to come to the rescue. 
We are, by these critics, not allowed an ounce of pre- 
ventive, as that interferes with their profits and pleas- 
ures, but they do demand from us tons of cure ; and, 
if we do not help all the wrecks that they produce, 
v^e are called heartless and untrue to our calling. 

Let us first consider the dance. Many there are 
who defend it as a sinless social custom that cultivates 
graceful movements and gives healthful exercise. I 
shall be pardoned for appearing so stupid as not to 
see any grace in the movements of the modern round 
dance or waltz. Pray, if it is graceful movements 
and healthful exercise you want, why not seek it in 
military drill, gymnastic, Delsarte and Calisthenics? 
Or, why is it that you do not dance by separating the 
sexes ? This, you say, would not do. Certainly not ! 
That would put an end to dancing. Thus it is very 
evident that it is not the graceful movements and the 
exercise you are seeking, but it is the amorous embrace 
that it affords. This produces a sexual excitement, 
and that is really what maintains the parlor and the 
ball room dance. Through the abnormal stimulus of 
the excitement the dance continues past midnight and 
far into the morning hours. Did you ever hear of a 
dance that closed at a seasonable evening hour? 

The following clipping from a January issue of 
one of our dailies* shows that the dancing thermo- 
meter has run quite high in our city this year : ''With 



* Minneapolis Journal. 



146 Dance-crazy Toit'iu 

club dances, public dances, dancing- classes and private 
parties there is a scarcity of dancing halls in the city. 
The cosy kind of halls that accommodate thirty 
couples or less are not to be had unless one has a 
strong pull. The reason is that the principal halls 
down town, used for such purposes, are engaged for 
every night up to the time when dancing is supposed 
to cease because of the waning energies of the dancers 
and premonitions of warm spring time. 

The town is dance-crazy. The coming Lent does 
not seem to have any effect upon this form of pastime, 
for with few exceptions the halls are rented |or every 
night until Easter. It is an odd sort of a man, or 
woman for that matter, w^ho does not belong to at 
least two dancing clubs, making one dance a week, 
not. counting private routes. One woman was heard 
this week to bewail the fact that, owing to a months 
illness in the family, she had missed twenty-one 
dances." 

With the dance goes the wine-cup, promiscuous 
associations, and undue familiarities. Statistics show 
that out of two hundred drunkards in the city of Los 
Angelos one hundred sixty-three acquired the habit 
at dances. Through the agency of the winecup and 
the dance the nerves are strung to the highest tension 
and often the victim falls exhausted to the floor, unfit 
for further work through the day. All that he has 
left from the enjoyment, when it is over, is the feeling 
that life is too miserable to live. His work becomes 
to him drudgery, and home a prison. Where is the 
young man that feels perfectly happy and satisfied 



Evil Consequences of Dance. 147 

after the dance excitement is over? Can you afford 
an amusement that will send you home nervous so 
that you cannot sleep? Can you afford to go to work 
the next day with blood-shot eyes, yawning, stupid, 
and nauseated looks? We take for granted that all 
amusements should build us up physically, mentally, 
and spiritually. Docs the dance yield such blessings? 
No, it yields wornout energies, disgust to work and 
an overtaxed purse. 

How would you consider the idea of beginning the 
dance with prayer and closing it with thanksgiving? 
Or, who has ever heard of the gracious Lord being 
present and sanctifying a social dance? The Lord 
is not there, and, young friends, I do plead with you 
to avoid the dance entirely. The ball-room and the 
parlor dance are the portals to hades and the so-called 
graceful movements is your precipitation into hell-fire. 

Another evil is the temptation to join secret orders 
for the sake of gaining social distinctions. It has be- 
come a style to belong to one or more. The plea for 
their existence is that they uphold a high moral 
standard and practice benevolence. Now let us see 
as to the moral standard. Does ever the question of 
morality enter when a new member is to be elected? 
If he be only young and physically healthy he may 
be as depraved as he can be, yet, in nine cases out of 
ten, he will be elected a member. Now, as to the 
plea of their benevolence, we find that it is based on 
the liberality wherewith they support their sick com- 
rades and pay their insurance in case of death. But 
let a person that suffers from some serious chronic 



148 Secret Orders, ' ' Order of Chosen Friends. ' ' 

illness apply for membership, and we shall find that 
the selfish reply is : We can not accept yon as a 
member nor give yon any insnrance. We find no 
fault with this part of the program, as the electing of 
members is something that they are privileged to do 
as they choose. It is, however, well to consider the 
argument that they give cheap insurance, for it is 
that argument which takes best. I shall not deny that 
it has been so in most societies up to the present time. 
There have been such great additions made, while 
comparatively few have died. The time is coming 
for most secret orders of America, that the old 
members will be fast dying, and their policies must 
be paid, while the income from new members is not 
increasing in the same proportion. It takes no prophet 
to announce, that most secret orders are doomed to 
bankruptcy ere long. 

The recent calamity at Galveston, Texas, broke up 
and drove into receiver's hands the "Order of Chosen 
Friends," which is one of the oldest orders with an 
insurance in this country. Either this fate will befall 
similar orders or they shall be obliged to go to the 
resort of levying heavy assessments on their members, 
in proportion as the older members are faster and 
faster dying out. Order insurance may have been 
cheap, but there will come a time some day when, as 
a member of one of them said to me, the "Old line 
insurance will be the cheapest and surest after all." 

Secret orders are an expense to the common- 
wealth. In 1873 the grand lodge of Odd Fellows 
scraped in $4,434,001. I am not in a position to know 



Secret Orders a Useless Expense. 140 

what their receipts are during the last year; but we 
know that it has had a tremendous increase. Now, 
the Odd Fellow is only one of the nearly 300 in the 
United States. The total membership of these orders 
is about six million. The Odd Fellow lodge is one 
of the largest, so we can not take that as a factor from 
which to obtain an accurate sum representing the 
gross receipts of all orders. But we shall not be 
much out of the way, if we say that the income of 
that order has increased 100 per cent since 1873, or, 
say to ten million. Let us entirely disregard the 290 
orders and count only on 10 with an income of ten 
million a piece. That is 100 million dollars. Now 
where are the institutions of charity to show for these 
immense sums? The whole Christian world spent 
only $16,174,966.00 for heathen missions last year. 
By this she maintains 27,157 stations and other good 
works. Beside this the church spends millions for 
education and charity at home, so the church has 
something to show for what it expends. The figures 
that we have compared are based on entirely unequal 
grounds. The mission contributions is from the 
whole world; the secret orders are for the United 
States only. We are justified In saying that the secret 
orders of the world spend thousands for every dollar 
the church commands. This Is no fault of the church 
as she does her best ; but It Is a fault of our common- 
wealth, which shows too clearly that we are more in- 
clined to waste our money In frivolity than to give 
it for charity and munificence. From a point of 
economy, young man, keep away from them ! You 



150 No Good Results from Expense. 

can not afford to put in your hard earned money to 
pay the paraphernaHa of officers that the order has 
instituted. Looking at the vast numbers of orders 
we ask : What great general good have they accomp- 
lished? Nothing. How many wrecks have they 
saved? We know of none. What institutions of 
general charity have they founded? Not one. What 
standard of morality do they preach? Who will 
answer? According to what standard do they 
practice? "Do others before others have a chance 
to do you" and "away with the ties that binds you 
to home. Let them be subordinated, at least, to the 
duty that the order demands." They say: "Let us 
eat and drink to-day for to-morrow we die." It is 
a perfectly epicurean mode of living. 

Furthermore the orders, if not outspokenly, are 
yet really adverse to the church. Thus the old Norse 
saying comes true: "Where the Lord builds his temple 
the devil rears his chapel." 

Many of the secret orders are in their religious 
writs blaspheming God. I have known secret order 
members to have died the death of the ungodly and 
the wicked ; and at several such funerals have the 
order services been read by a member so intoxicated 
that he could hardly stand without support. They 
eulogized the departed brother, who "was so kind 
and generous" — but while he lived he let his own 
family starve — "and who has now gone home to 
bliss," when we all know that if there be a hot corner 
in hell certainly righteousness would consign him to 



Great Me7i' s Opviion on Secret Orders. 151 

it. Oh, insolent men, how dare you thus trifle with 
God." 

"Unto the wicked God saith: 

What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, 

And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth? 

Seeing thou hatest instruction, 

And casteth my words behind thee." 

(Ps. 50:16-17.) 

Allow me to quote what some famous men have 
said with reference to this subject: "Secret societies 
are dangerous to the cause of civil liberty and good 
government. It is m}- opinion that the future admin- 
istration of such oaths, and the formation of all such 
obligations, should be prohibited by law." — Daniel 
Webster. ''I regard it (Masonry) as Satan's Master- 
piece — a terrible snare to men." — Nathaniel Colver, 
once a Mason. "Recent attention to Masonry has 
filled me with astonishment, and as to some things 
contained in it with horror." — Prof. Moses Stuart. 
"Freemasonry must be destroyed in our country if it 
is to be the home of the free." — Hon. Chas. Sumner. 
"The Masonic fraternity tramples upon our rights, 
defeats the administration of justice, and bids defiance 
to every government it cannot control." — W. H. 
Seward. "Any good cause, I think, can be promoted 
openly; any secret association is liable, at least, to 
abuse and danger." — Albert Barnes, 1849. "North 
Ohio Conference has progressed very rapidly till this 
time, but Masonry and Oddfellowship have arrested 



152 Great Mens Opinioii on Secret Orders. 

us. Masonry and Oddfellowship — a bane in the midst 
of us — have done much evil. "Bishop Hamhne, M. E. 
Church, in his diary, 1848. "In conducting the gov- 
ernment of the world there are not only sovereigns 
and ministers, but secret orders to be considered, 
w^hich have agents everywhere — reckless agents, who 
countenance assassinations, and, if necesary, can pro- 
duce a massacre." — Lord Beaconsfield, late British 
Prime Minister. "I am prepared to complete the 
demonstration before God and man that the Alasonic 
oaths, obligations and penalties, cannot, by any pos- 
sibility, be reconciled to the laws of morality, Chris- 
tianity, or civil law. Secrets written in blood should 
be revealed ; a tree that bears such fruits should be 
cut down. No butcher would mutilate the carcass 
of a bullock, or a swine, as the Masonic candidate 
swears consent to the mutilation of his own body for 
the breach of an absurd and unreasonable secret. It 
is an oath of which a common cannibal would be 
ashamed." — John Quincy Adams. "IMasonry is a false 
religion. It is a fraud. It is a virtual conspiracy, 
against both church and state." — Prof. C. G. Finney, 
a reformed Mason. 

Another prominent feature of a young man's social 
life is his indulgence in games and other amusements. 
I need not ask them to avoid the pool-room and the 
billiard-hall. They are the recognized schools of vice 
and iniquity. When the air is contaminated by smoke 
and full of curses on man and disrespect to God, no 
young man that wants to keep his path clear, should 
ever enter. If you once enter those infernal places 



Gaines ; Cards. 15S 

of vice and iniquity you may consider yourself as 
unfortunate as the mouse in. the trap. At the first 
entrance you are met with cordiahty, and many are 
willing to show you how. As soon as you are able 
''to go it alone" the game begins. Your willing 
teacher will give you the best of him at first ; but 
as your courage and skill increase he will bounce upon 
you with the fury of an eagle. To make your defeat 
good you muster up more courage, and ere you know 
it you are as bad as the worst of them. 

Skill in, or even knowledge of card playing in a 
manner somewhat successful, is likely to bring you 
into companionship with those that are professionals. 
It certainly contributes nothing to the higher forms 
of enjoyment. It stimulates the emulations, which St. 
Paul enumerates as such that ought to be avoided; 
it is the accompaniment of gambling and low society. 
A deck of cards can be and often is made most detri- 
mental to the best interests of morality and righteous- 
ness. If one finds that cards are so bewitching as to 
induce long tarrying at the games, and consequently 
neglect of business, or if he finds that they lead into 
any form of gambling, then surely such persons should 
abandon card-playing as a bad amusement. Card- 
playing certainly carries those things with it, and 
should consequently be entirely avoided. The pro- 
gressive euchre party and the social games of poker, 
at which the stakes are ''just enough to make the game 
interesting, you know," often prove effective recruit- 
ing shops for the gambling hells. 

Gambling tends to the ruin of the gambler ; it 



154 Gambli7ig. 

risks the welfare of the family and friends. Gambling 
is the staking of property upon mere hazard. It is 
estimated that over $80 million a day exchange hands 
through the various forms of gambling. The only 
difference between it and stealing is, that in the gamb- 
ling the loser chooses to risk the loss of his property. 
It is made the cause of money transactions that are 
essentially anti-social. The normal obtainment of 
gratification, or of money which purchases gratifi- 
cation, implies first, that there has been put forth 
equivalent effort of a kind which, in some way, fur- 
thers the general good ; second, that those from whom 
the money is obtained, get, directly or indirectly, 
equivalent satisfaction. But in gambling the opposite 
happens. Benefits received do not imply effort put 
forth, and the happiness of the winner implies the 
misery of the loser. 

The experience of generations shows that whether 
one is the winner or loser, the excitements and 
witchery of gambling are so intense and peculiar 
that not one in a thousand can easily stop it after he 
has once experienced its tantalizing uncertainties and 
possibilities. A little taste of gains leads to a belief 
in good luck, tempts to financial extravagance, and 
induces business carelessness and unrest of mind. In 
January this year the world was startled at the an- 
nouncement that Mr. Schwab, President of the United 
States steel corporation, — the only man in the world 
said to command a salary of a million a year, — was 
haunting the gambling dens at Monte Carlo, and win- 
ning and losing money in ten-thousand dollar lumps. 



Mr. Schwab' s Ga7}iblmg. 155 

The New York Times says: "The 'sensation' was 
due to the revelation that a man who has assumed 
responsibiHties so numerous and so heavy should 
publicly join the intellectual and social dregs of 
Europe, around the gambling-tables of Monte Carlo, 
and there make a more or less prolonged effort to 
'beat' a game which to mathematical certainty can not 
be beaten. Perhaps if Mr. Schwab had more of the 
education, which it is his habit to decry as useless 
for men of affairs, he would not have betrayed so 
pitiful lack of mental resources the moment he was 
free from his accustomed occupation, and, with the 
door to all the artistic and historic treasures of Europe 
opened by his wealth, he would not have been obliged 
to offend and alarm so large a fraction of his fellow 
country men." 

It seems absurd, yet some Catholic papers in this 
country are making a defence of this act. The follow- 
ing is interesting as it shows the depravity in the 
Catholic church. "Lest Catholics themselves should 
get a false conscience from this protestant clamor. 
The Observer," a catholic publication, "thinks proper to 
state that there is nothing essentially evil in taking 
part in any game of chance, that Mr. Schwab did not 
exceed in his ventures the amount of money that he 
could afford to spend for his amusement, and that 
it is not against the civil law at Alonte Carlo to play 
those gambling games." Need we not again pray: 
"God save us from the morals of the Catholic church?" 

There are other amusements that seem so per- 
fectly harmless and innocent, and "per se" they are 



156 Base Ball ; Foot Ball. 

SO. We need only mention those most common among 
us, such as base-ball and foot-ball. It is pleaded that 
they are good for the health. But the argument is 
too inconsistent with facts. If it is good for the 
health why then always have, during the progress of 
a game, sufficient medical and surgical help near at 
hand? If it is to develop muscle, why not do that by 
gymnastic and military drill? — Certainly, these are 
not the real reasons for up-holding those games to 
the degree to which they now have attained. It is 
certainly not to develop muscle that the patrons of 
the bleachers and the grandstand are there. They 
came there for the identical reason that the Romans 
flocked to the arena, the Spaniards to the buil-fight 
and the American rogue to the prize-fight. The love 
for excitement is the same and it finds its satisfac- 
tion in demonstrations based on the same principles. 
The difiference is only that of degree. The ball ground 
is less bloody than the arena or the ring ; but the hearts 
of the spectators are swayed by the same sensations. 
It is well to recall the words of Marcus Aurelius : 
"The soul does violence to itself when it is over- 
powered by pleasure or by pain." (Meditations 16:4) 
When we consider the great sums paid for admission 
to these games we are amazed. But if we only knew 
how much is spent each time at pool, we would 
shudder at the thought of ever having condescended 
to put our feet into the gamblers den of the ball- 
ground. Can it be right for us as Christians, to sup- 
port such breeders of vice and prom.oters of iniquity? 
Let us next consider the theatre. It is argued that 



Thcat7'c. Two Classes. 157 

this is a very old institution of education. That it is 
old, we shall not deny. But is it there for good? — 
Gambling is old, at least as old as the Christian era. 
Are we therefore bound to call it good and uphold it? 
Vice itself is as old as the human race, and are we 
therefore to sustain and cherish it? Certainly not. 
It is said that it was a method of education. Truly, 
it was. But is it now? We choose to impart popular 
education by means of the press, the lecture-platform 
and the pulpit. Can the ancient theatre take the place 
of these modern methods? If it be a system of edu- 
cation, what do they teach? If it be a school for 
morals, why do you find at these places most of such 
people who care little for morality? To the lower 
grades of the theatre our respectable young men will 
not go because vicious men and women are gathered 
there. There is vice in its coarsest forms. Frequent- 
ers of those places are less cultivated in the art of 
concealing vice, and they do not possess means enough 
to indulge in those ''finer pleasures," that the higher 
classed theatres afiford. The difference between the 
two is. only one of degree. One is awfully and openly 
wicked, but the other is refined wickedness ; it's vice 
sugar-coated so as to make it palatable to more refined 
tastes. If it is a school of morals then surely the 
patrons of it ought to know that they go there to 
learn moral lessons. Do you ever hear anyone say 
when they go to the theatres : I go there to learn to 
be good. No never! The argument that theatres 
are schools of morals is never applied in practice, but 
is used only in desperate self-defense. When no other 



158 Nature of Performances. 

plea will avail, this is resorted to as a last instance. 
The theatre may be said to be a school of morals, but 
the resultants are bad. 

Their standard of morality can best be judged 
from the plays put on the stage. Why is it that the 
"Classics" are so seldom reproduced? Simply be- 
cause they fail to draw crowds. What draws now-a- 
days is the vaudeville, the melodrama, and the bur- 
lesque. Such plays that appeal to the intellect chiefly 
can not be made a paying proposition. To draw 
crowds they must be such that appeal to the emotions. 
That would not be objectionable, if the emotions ap- 
pealed to were the nobler parts of man. But the plays 
that attract now is the thunder and the blood, or the 
sensually sentimental sort that awaken the baser 
instincts of man. There must be flight and pursuits, 
and narrow escapes, and drawn daggers all ending in 
sunshine and bliss and unalloyed happiness. Surely 
this sort of instruction can not produce nobility of 
character, or teach any good moral. There is a sort 
of pleasing sensation accompanying these observa- 
tions, or something that tickles the sensualities. It 
is to experience those sensations that most people go 
to the theatres. There many spend the evening in a 
packed, close room, inhailing air heavy with exhala- 
tions of other people, while emotions are being grad- 
ually excited and the passions swayed. This excite- 
ment continues into the hours that ought to be spent, 
in sleep. ' 

If it be a school of morals, why do not the moral 
preachers, the actors, practice their own lessons? 



Morality of Theatre. 159 

How shocked and indignant we become if we learn 
that a preacher has fallen into sin or crime. This is 
so because we naturally expect him to practice what 
he preaches. But we are not surprised or shocked to 
hear that an actor is a libertine or sot, because we 
don't expect anything else. There have, indeed, been a 
few virtuous actors, and that they are few, is a fact 
well known to most patrons of this institution. Few 
parents, indeed, will take the actors home and let them 
associate with their children. They think this too 
much like bringing the child too near the fire. In 
speaking of the stage Carlyle says: "Behind the 
glitter stalks the shadow of eternal death. Through 
it I look, not up toward God, heaven, and the throne 
of truth, but too truly, down towards falsity, vacuity 
and the dwelling place of everlasting despair." 

The morality of the theatre can be judged by the 
crowd that it draws. It is not the God-fearing and 
home-loving, but those that like revelry and sensuality. 
Why would you feel shocked if you should find that 
your pastor were a regular patron of the theatre? 
If it is a moral educational institution is it not the 
most reasonable thing in the world that he should go 
there ? No ! you do not want him there, because you 
think the place too sinful. Why don't the theatres 
announce their plays on our church doors? Certainly, 
because we will not allow it as we consider their 
interests diametrically opposed to ours. But in the 
saloon windows and in the bordels their displays are 
welcomed as these institutions regard the theatres as 
co-factors of iniquity. Pray, did you ever hear a 



160 The Taste that Theatres Cultivate. 

theatre-goer confess : I used to beat my wife and 
starve my children, but when I began to attend theatre 
I learnt that that was morally wrong and so I quit? 
Did you? I hear no answer. Such reforms are quite 
common in the church. But did you ever hear of 
anyone that shirked his duty just to attend the theatre? 
Quite common, aren't they? 

It is argued that the theatre cultivates taste. Yes, 
so it does ; but not taste for the home, church, religion, 
and God; but a burning desire for more sensual ex- 
citement. It does not elevate the soul so that it mounts 
on wings over these trivial things, but it drags it 
down into filth and disrespect of itself. I look at the 
sign-board display of the theatre. I suppose that 
these representations of the play-house costumes are 
true, or if they are not true, then these "highly moral 
and religious" institutions are swindling the public 
by inducing the people to the theatre by promises of 
spectacular nudity, which they do not fulfill. If such 
things are given, as they most certainly are, then these 
presentations certainly depress the public conscience 
by familiarizing it with those improprieties. 

"If you would pervert taste — go to the theatre. 
If you would imbibe false views — go to the theatre. 
If you would efface as speedily as possible all qualms 
of conscience — go to the theatre. If you would put 
yourself irreconciliably against the spirit of virtue and 
religion — go to the theatre. If you would like to be 
infected with each particular vice in the catalogue of 
depravity — go to the theatre." 

At the theatre there is certainly much that courts 



IF/ia^ Theatres Appeal to. 161 

attention. The following testimony by a friend of 
the institution sees in this spectacular something that 
is not good : 

"When Burbage played, the stage was bare 
Of fount and temple, tower and stair; 
Two backswords eked a battle out ; 
Two supers made a rabble rout. 
The throne of Denmark was a chair. 

"And yet, no less, the audience there 
Thrilled through all the changes of despair, 
Hope, Anger, Fear, Delight, and Doubt, 
When Burbage played. 

"This is the actor's gift, to share 
All modes, all passions, nor to care 
One whit for scene, so he without, 
Can leave men's minds the roundabout, 
Stirred as of old those hearers were, 
When Burbage played." 

But, may we be permitted to ask : what good does it 
do to be "Thrilled through all the changes of despair. 
Hope, anger, fear, delight, and doubt?" Does it 
cultivate good taste or elevate the soul? Scenery or 
no scenery the psychological results are the same. 
Shame on the nature that can revel in the enjoyment 
of such things, and thousand times shame on those 
that live for the sake of provoking those things ! And 
what benefit do we as a society or community derive 



162 Results of Theatre Going. 

from such performances? "The clog that gnaws the 
refuse bone, pays for it by barking at the thief. The 
cat that purrs her gratitude for a morsel of meat, will 
pay for it by clearing our houses from rats. But 
what do we get in return for supporting whole loads 
of playmongers and circus-clowns? They eat, they 
drink, they giggle, they grimace they strut in garish 
clothes. And what else? — They have not afforded 
even useful amusements. Their trade is comical and 
tragical buffoonery. We have, at the bottom of 
society a set of wondering, dancing, jesting, fiddling 
aristocrats whom we support for the sake of their 
capers, grins and caricatures of life. I do not accuse 
them for trying to produce immorality, but with pur- 
suing a course which produces it whether they try 
or not. Moral diseases, like the plague, are contagious 
whether the patient wishes it or not. A vile man 
infects his children without so desiring it. It is 
notorious that the theatre is the door to all sinks of 
iniquity. It is through this place that the young learn 
to love those vicious associates and practices to which 
else, they would have been strangers. Half the vic- 
tims of the gallows and of the penitentiary will tell 
you that these schools of morals were to them the 
gates of debauchery, the porch of pollution, the ves- 
tibule of the very house of death." 

We have now touched upon some of the phases 
of a young man's social life. We find that this world 
appeals to the young as a very amusing one indeed. 
It offers him the theatre, the opera, the concert, the 
circus, the menagerie, the museum, the mongrel show, 



What Rccrcatio?is to Choose? 163 

the races, the fairs, the expositions, the grand ball, 
the ckib dances, the parlor dances, the base-ball, the 
foot-ball, tennis, cards, chess, checkers, and a host of 
others. Seeing that there is such a variety to select 
from, which shall we choose? 

Modern college athletics and certain forms of 
gymnastic exercises as generally conducted, are un- 
wisely severe, and when intercollegiate match games 
become very frequent and result in intense excite- 
ment, angry disputes, betting, and drinking, they then 
become a source of great evil, not only physically but 
mentally and morally. 

The nature of our employment must be taken into 
account when we make our choice. Students, and 
such people whose work is indoors, ought to seek their 
recreation as far as possible in the open air, while 
those whose work is manual labor in the open air will 
find most recreation in in-door pastime and contem- 
plation. 

Paul says to Timothy, that ''bodily exercise is 
profitable for a little" (I Tim. 4:8), but if an amuse- 
ment sends you home at night nervous, as the dance, 
the theatre, etc., so that you can not sleep, and you 
get up in the morning, not because you are rested, 
but because your duties drag you from your slumbers, 
you have been where you ought not to have been. 
There are entertainments such as the theatre and the 
show, that give a man disgust with the drudgery of 
life ; with work-tools because they are not swords ; 
with working aprons because they are not princely 
robes ; with domestic cattle because thev are not 



164 What Recreations io Choose? 

infuriated bulls of the arena. If anything sends you 
home longing for a life of thrilling adventure, for 
love that takes poison or shoots itself, for moonlight 
adventures and hair-breath escapes, you may depend 
upon it, you are the victim of unsanctified pleasure. 
Recreations are intended to build us up and if they 
pull us down, as to our moral or as to our physical 
strength, you may safely conclude that they are ob- 
noxious ! All recreation which lea^' e a sting, or a 
feeling of surfeit or of regret, are either essentially 
unhealthful or indulged in to an injurious extent. 
Genuine healthful recreation should stimulate mental 
emotions in such a way as to make us forget burdens 
and sorrows, and when over it should leave in 
consciousness a sweet memory which spreads its per- 
fume over and through the successive period of toil. 
We should bear in mind that recreation should secure 
rest from irksome toil and conduce to real recuper- 
ation. All such that tend to make our daily duty seem 
a burden should be avoided. 

"Give pleasures's name to naught 

But what has passed the authentic seal of reason, ■ 

And defies the tooth of time ; 

When past, a pleasure still." 

Among such great variety to choose from, we are 
often at a loss to know what to choose. We certainly 
want to choose that which is for our best. The safest 
is always the best. When I want to go to Chicago 
I can make the same time on anv of four different 



What Recreations to Choose? 165 

roads at the same expense. Now which shall I take? 
When all other conditions are equal, I take the one 
that brings me through the most beautiful scenery, 
that I may while away time in the enjoyment of 
nature. But if I hear that a flood has made the tracks 
unsafe, torn away the bridges, and washed away 
stations, you may depend on it that I should not go 
that way just to enjoy the scenery, but would choose 
the safe route. Let scenery go, but let us have safety. 
Now many ways of life are such that they lead us 
through gorgeous scenery spread on paths of viscious 
amusements. But the track is unsafe. The flood of 
vice is washing away the bridge over that awful 
stream that we must all cross. Young man, of 
pleasure seeking disposition, when you pass the 
searchlight of your reason ahead you shall find that 
before you there is a terrible abyss underneath which 
is the cold rushing stream of perdition. Put on the 
air breaks, reverse the motion of the engine ere it is 
too late ! 

"Pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow-flakes on the river, 
A moment white, then lost forever; 
Or, like the borealis' race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form, 
Evanishing amid the storm." 

Young men, God intends that you should be social, 
or He would not have given you that instinct. But 



l66 What Recreations to Choose ? 

do not let that noble desire be the cause of your 
temporal and eternal ruin. "Shun evil companions, 
bad language disdain, God's name hold in reverence, 
nor take it in vain." "Wherewith shall a young man 
cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according 
to thy word." (Ps. 119:9). "Bodily exercise is 
profitable for a little ; but godliness is profitable for 
all things, having promises for the life that now is, 
and of that which is to come." (I Tim. 4:18). 




THE YOUNG MAN AND RELIGIOUS LIFE. 




PAUL makes the observation that the Gen- 
tiles, who "have not the law, do by nature 
the things of the law, these, not having 
the law, are the law unto themselves ; 
in that they show the work of the law 
written in their hearts, their conscience, 
bearing witness therewith, and their 
thoughts one with another accusing or 
excusing them." (Rom. 2:14-15). He 
has found that the religious conviction is 
one quite universal with men. Go wherever we may, 
we shall find that human nature tells us there is a 
Supreme Being. As a product of this innate con- 
sciousness, we have the Roman and Grecian Myth- 
ology ; the Zend Avesta of Zoroaster ; the Shastra of 
Hindooism ; the Mohammedan Koran. In Athens, the 
great educational center, Paul found that people were 
religious even to the extent of erecting an altar *'to 
an unknown God." (Acts 17:23). At Ephesus, he 
found the people over enthusiastic for the worship 
of Diana. (Acts 19:28). We may turn wherever we 
please and we shall see that man is a religious being, 
just as surely as he is a social animal. You may 
summon witnesses from all parts of the globe; you 

(167) 



^'i 



168 Religion a Universal Conviction. 

may summon the millions that are buried beneath the 
sod ; but from this myriad of witnesses omit the 
handful of self-conceited and self-sufficient atheists 
and infidels ; ask this host the question : Is there a 
God? and they will all respond with a voice that shall 
sound as the rushing of many waters : Yes, there is 
a God! 

This universal conviction is so indelibly stamped 
on the human character, that it cannot be blotted out. 
It is difficult for us to understand how a man can 
be an atheist, and at the same time be honest to his 
convictions. If he be so, there must certainly be 
something at fault with his spiritual nature, as there 
is a something lacking him, which we find in all other 
men. He lacks the feeling of reverence to God. 
Either he is minus a sense, or the whole human race 
is possessing one too much. To judge from his 
words, we conclude that he believes the human race 
has one sense too much, — the religious sense. Does 
it not look like a bold piece of heaven defying im- 
pudence when we see Tom Paine, Bob Ingersoll, and 
a few others, face the whole world, both past and 
present, and say : You are all mistaken ; we and our 
comrades, who hold there is no God, are the only 
ones in the right ! 

There is in man a conscience, which is the universal 
voice of God. In spite of all opposition 

"Yet, still there whispers the sweet voice within, 
Heard throue^h Gain's silence and o'er Glorv's din ; 



Religion an Indelible A tribute. 169 

Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, 
Men's conscience is the oracle of God." 

In vain does the atheist, or infidel, or agnostic, 
try to stop our search to know the infinite and eternal ; 
in vain does he tell us it is a useless quest. Still we 
press on, and must press on. The incentive is in our- 
selves, and nothing can blot it out of us, and still leave 
us men and women. It would be easier to blot out 
ambition from a man and to consign him to endless 
and nerveless content ; it is easier to blot out of him 
love and banish him to live as an eunuch than to blot 
out those aspirations that knit him to God, the infinite 
and eternal. South says : "A palsy may well shake 
an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain as "either of 
them shake, dry up or impair the delight of conscience. 
For it lies within, it centers in the heart, grows into 
the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies 
a man to his grave ; he never outlives it, and that for 
this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself." 
It is to this eternal principle in man that religion 
appeals. 

Religion is not something or somewhat external 
to man. It is an essential life of man. It is not some- 
thing apart from him, which has been imposed upon 
him by priests or hierarchies here or anywhere. It 
belongs to his nature. Religion is the mother of all 
religions, not the child. It is a universal character- 
istic of humanity. It is not conferred on man in re- 
demption, nor brought into existence at Mt. Sinai or 
on Calvarv, but in creation. The Law and Christ 



170 Developement of Religious Instinct, 

came not to create religion, but the first to order and 
the second to develop the religion already in the 
human soul. 

There was in man a moral sense to be guided, a 
faith to be developed, a love to be expanded, and a 
hope to be made firm. With these sides of man does 
religion deal. If his moral sense is not good, religion 
will make it better. If his faith does not always see 
the infinite it still gropes for it. And faith, unlike 
material things, gains strength by constant use. There 
is in man a love which expands from the filial to the 
philantropic and divine ; and a hope which, though 
often elusive, still leads him on to higher achieve- 
ments of character and condition. If this be the 
correct psychological analysis of the totality of the 
human race, it must be evident that those, who deny 
the existence of a something in man which points 
upward, are either maliciously untruthful, in denying 
that which they feel, or else they are lunatics, whose 
totality is not a complete person, as conscience is too 
imperious not to be heard by an ordinary mortal. 
Not even for an hour can you bear to be alone, nor 
can you advantageously apply your leisure time, but 
you endeavor, a fugitive and wanderer, to escape from 
yourself, now vainly seeking to banish remorse by 
wine, and now by sleep ; but the gloom companion 
presses on you and pursues you as you fly. However, 
as Shakespeare says, 

"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? 
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; 



Christianity its True Expression. l*?! 

And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 

An old Latin saying expresses it in the following 
words: "A man devoid of religion is like a horse 
without a bridle." 

What the world wants for this universal conscious- 
ness is the very best expression possible, and this can 
be had only in the one true religion : Christianity. 
An eminent psychologist has said, that the roots of 
the highest religion lie side by side with those of 
lower superstition. We want, therefore, that religion 
which gives no occasion for a confusion, and this we 
find in Protestant Christianity. The soul wants re- 
ligion with a deeper thirst than it wants silver or 
gold, or knowledge or science. The ambition of a 
great soul is not to be satisfied by the possession of 
a morsel of earth added to another, but by the pos- 
session of God, alone sufficiently great to fill up an 
infinite thought. George Eliot (IVIary A. Evans) 
said : 'T desire to have a religion which is more than 
a personal consolation." 

Christianity is the religion for activity, as well as 
for consolation. Christ alone, of all the founders of 
so-called religions, had the courage to say to his 
disciples: "Go, teach all nations." This activity is 
now going on through the missions and charity work 
at home and abroad. Renan wonders that "a society 
of perfects should be so feeble." Too bad that he 
should so clearly manifest his ignorance of history ! 
If he were present to-day to answer the question, 



172 Religion and Morality Distinguished- 

which society he would rather choose, the "ehghtened" 
leaders of the ''French Commune" and the "Terror- 
ists," or the Christian, I am inclined to think that 
even he would seek the shelter of the "society of per- 
fects," which to him seemed "so feeble," rather than 
to be in the cruel hands of cold infidelity. Christian- 
ity, it is true, has often been feeble ; but that is not 
the fault of the principles, any more than it is the 
fault of our laws that murders are committed. Chris- 
tian ideals have always been in advance of past ages ; 
they are still far in advance of our present conditions. 
Religion and morality are not the same, and can- 
not take the place of each other. Most heathen na- 
tions have much religion but very little morality. On 
the other hand, morality without religion makes at 
best only a bad result, and a community will decline 
as ethics supplants religion and the moral life is 
substituted for the religious. The Catholic Church 
tried to supplant religion by morality and has degen- 
erated. Extreme Unitarianism tried it and withered. 
The French Revolution tried it by establishing the 
worship of reason, but it had to restore God to obtain 
order. The French have again tried it since 1870 by 
excluding from education, religion, but have had to 
make amends. English deism tried it and gave birth, 
through Voltaire and others, to French infidelity and 
German skepticism. All -attempts have proven that 
force and vitality in the churches decline as ethics sup- 
plant religion, and moral life is substituted for the 
religious. The religious life alone has creative power. 
The moral can never create the true religious, while 



Rcligio7i ajid Morality » 173 

llie true religious will always produce the good moral. 
Without the religious life as allied to the supernatural, 
1 do not believe any severe morality can be maintained 
among men. Take away the refined and elevated 
pleasures religion gives, and what multitudes of coarse 
and sensual ones clamor for its place; they would 
honeycomb society and pluck our children away from 
our homes and altars. George Washington says, "Of 
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political 
prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable 
supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute 
of patriotism, who shall labor to subvert these great 
pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the 
duties of men and citizens. And let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be main- 
tained without religion. Whatever may be conceded 
to the influence of refined education on minds of 
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid 
us to expect that national morality can prevail in 
exclusion of religious principle." 

Religion is something that embraces the whole 
human being. It is often held to be merely a matter 
of sentiment, and that it thus makes men effeminate. 
Just the opposite is the truth. Religion makes even 
weak women to be strong moral giants. A Perpetua 
rather braves the lion's gory main and the tyrant's 
brandished steel than renouunces her fate. Florence 
Nightingale and Dorothy Dix are by Christianity 
inspired to true heroism. Paul at Ephesus, Savana- 
rola at Florence, John Huss at Boehmen, Luther at 
Worms, show the more than human strength which 



174 Coinprises Whole Being. 

religion gives to man. It does not make men weak 
and over-sentimental but brave and self-possessed. 
The Christian character is the self-controlled, the 
earnest, the one careful of the claims of others, and 
responsible to a higher power. It is that character 
which dares to do right and that in spite of all oppo- 
sition. It is true that some who confess Christianity 
display a different disposition. When such persons 
fall into sin the worldly minded are shocked at the 
awful impropriety. Now, if Christianity is so weak, 
over-sentimental, and bad, why then should such 
manifestations be shocking? The fact is, that the 
whole world owns the high moral and intellectual 
standing of the Christian religion. 

Some are willing to make a compromise, and will 
give the intellect to science, the will to ethics, and the 
emotions to religion. To use the illustration of 
Scoville, this would be like Germany granting to Eng- 
land the Kingdom of the Sea, assigning to France 
that of the land, and leaving for old Deutchland only 
that of the air. To be sure, Deutchland, would not 
grant any such arbitrary division. She would want 
her share of water, land, and air. So religion cannot 
be consigned to only one of the sides of human nature. 
It must have a hold on the whole person. Feeling has 
been unduly honored at the relative neglect of thought 
and action. Feeling of some kind is certainly one 
side of the Christian life. It may be either as a quiet 
river, flowing through meadows of meditation, toward 
the ocean of infinite love, or a mountain stream rush- 
ing through many a thundering cataract. Feelings do 



Co77iprises Whole Being. 175 

not cut out the intellect or bar the will from action. 
They are not the criterion whereby we are to judge 
the Christian life either in ourselves or in others. In 
the midst of his misfortunes Job said : "I know that 
my Redeemer liveth." (Job. 19:25). In the midst 
of spiritual and bodily suffering, Paul said : "I know 
him whom I have believed, and I am pursuaded that 
He is able to guard that which I have commited unto 
him against that day." (II Tim. 1:12). Christianity 
is not a matter of merely feelings, for "if our hearts 
condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and 
knoweth all things." (I John 3:20). If you desire 
to find the demands that Christianity makes of the 
will, then read the ten commandments. There is 
something to exercise the will on, and as true followers 
of Christ, this law, which He fulfilled, the Christian 
in true imitation, will also strive to fulfill, that he 
may be like Christ by doing the will of his Father. 
Christianity brings into activity the whole mental 
being. The normal order is that the intellect leads 
the will, and the sensibilities follow. It is not feel- 
ing first, and then action, and after action knowledge, 
as so many of our superficial Christians have it. It is 
not : I do as I feel ; but, I do what I know ought to 
be done in spite of feelings. The following testimony 
given at a camp meeting in western New 
York entirely misrepresents Christianity: "Brethren, 
I feel, I feel, I feel— I feel that I feel— I can't tell 
you how I feel, but Oh, I feel ! I feel !" 

The Christian religion is a greater stimulus to 
activity than any other known factor. When Christ 



176 Cojnprises Whole Being. 

said that "My Father worketh even until now, and 
I work," he struck the keynote of the positive side 
of life. In true imitation of Christ the Christian life 
is just as much productive as receptive for "it is God 
who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his 
good pleasure." (Philip. 2:13). 

Christianity is a comfort to man ; as such it appeals 
to him in the totality of his person. Eugene Field 
has expressed his views in the following beautiful 
poem : 

I hear Thy voice, dear Lord; 

I hear it by the stormy sea. 
When winter's nights are black and wild. 

And when, affright, I call to Thee. 
It calms my fears, and whispers me: 

''Sleep well, my child." 

I hear Thy voice, dear Lord ; 

In singing winds and falling snow, 
The curfew chimes, the midnight bell ; 

''Sleep well, my child," it murmurs low; 
The guardian angels come and go. 

O child sleep well. 

Speak on — speak on, dear Lord ; 

And when the last dread night is near, 
With doubts and fears and terrors wild, 

Oh, let my soul expiring hear 
Only these words of heavenly cheer: 

"Sleep well, my child." 



Christiati Influence on Individuals. 177 

Christianity brings results to the person by making 
him better. Shakespeare says: "It is rehgion that 
makes a vow kept." Rev. J. W. F. Barnes, Chaplain 
of the State Prison of Massachusetts states in a reply 
to J. W. Crafts that, "When a man comes to prison 
who has been a church-goer, it makes a sensation. 
Why should it do so, save for the reason that the 
idea of a church-goer and the idea of a criminal are 
so totally unlike?" When even the most cruel cannibal 
is touched by the love of Christ, his cannibalism must 
yield to humanitarianism. When the wife beater and 
child abuser is converted he becomes the loving father 
and tender husband. Christian religion has a won- 
derful power to transform the human heart as well 
as its mode of living. Read its influence by studying 
carefully its effect on the human race as set forth in 
its development of human progress. 

Christianity is indispensible for the welfare of the 
individual. No other religion can show such glorious 
conditions and wonderful achievements as can the 
Christian. Erase all thought and fear of God from a 
community, and selfishness and sensuality would 
absorb the whole man. Appetite, knowing no 
restraint, and suffering having no solace or* hope, 
would trample in scorn the restraints of human laws. 
Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurred 
as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self-interest would 
supplant every feeling; and man would become, in 
fact, what the theory in atheism declares him to be, 
— a companion for brutes. 

Edm. Burke said, "We know, and what is better, 



178 Scrnpitlously Careful Young Men. 

we feel inwardly that religion is the basis of society, 
and the source of all good and of all comfort. In 
England we are so convinced of this, that there is no 
rust of superstition with which the accumulated ab- 
surdity of the human mind might have crusted it over 
in the course of ages, that ninety nine in a hundred 
of the people of England would prefer to impiety." 
Religion is a social concern ; for it operates powerfully 
in society, contributing to its stability and prosperity. 
Religion is not merely a private affair ; the community 
is deeply interested in its diffusion ; for it is the best 
support of the virtues and principles, on which the 
social order rests. Pure and undefiled religion is to 
do good ; and it follows, very plainly, that if God be 
the Author and Friend of society, then, the recogni- 
tion of him must enforce all social duties and enlight- 
ened piety must give its whole strength to public 
order. 

The question that we are to consider is the attitude 
of young men to this universal principle. We can not 
be blind to the fact that young men are more inclined 
to disregard this than are the young ladies. Before 
proceeding to the consideration of the difficulty I 
desire to call your attention to the observation that 
there are two distinct classes of young men. The 
first is the scrupulously careful, which is represented 
by a character delineated in the following: "If in 
plowing corn, I missed a weed, I could not bear to 
leave it, and so, often got off the plow, and going 
back, pulled it up. Sometimes I became angry instead 
of going back, and then vented my rage on the horses, 



Reckless Young Men. 179 

thinkiiiiT: that tliev had not walked as thcv should. 
Likewise in running a selfbinder, I worked myself 
nearly to death, changing the machine for 'up' and 
'down' grain in order that every scrap should be 
gotten, and that every bundle should be bound just 
a trifle nearer the butts than the heads. If the horses 
went into the grain, thus causing the machine to run 
over some and leave it, I often went back and pulled 
it up, not to save it, but just for the looks of the 
thing." 

The scrupulously careful young men are very few 
compared to the great number of young men in the 
opposite class. The greater number of young men 
are rather inclined to be reckless, and rather than to 
be overcareful in making things go exactly right, they 
are much more given to let them go as they may 
happen. There is, indeed, a sense of right and wrong ; 
but those in this class will do that which costs least 
trouble. If doing right puts them at no apparent 
disadvantage, they prefer it ; but they do not see why 
they should do right for right's sake. If coming to 
Church can be done at little or no exertion, they will 
do it ; but in no wise will they make it a religious 
duty that must be attended to at the expense of some 
other pleasure. If meeting their obligations can be 
done easily, then good and well, but they will rather 
disappoint others than sacrifice anything themselves. 
Look out, young man ! you are training yourself to 
be bad, and if you do not repent, you shall go from 
bad to worse. 

We have observed that the young men appear less 



180 Statistics. 

religiously inclined than the young lady. If we were 
able to find the cause of this phenomenon, we might 
also be able to produce a remedy, Many explanations 
have been suggested. Of these I shall present to you 
quite a varity, and also venture to offer some sug- 
gestions. 

It is a difficult thing to find a satisfactory reason 
for this sad state of affairs. The Secretary of the Y. 
M. C. A. in co-operation with the Secretary of the 
Federal Census Bureau have undertaken to gather 
statistical information with reference to the attitude 
of young men towards religion. The results of the 
inquiry are thus summarized in Association "Men" : 
"In families where father and mother belong to the 
same church seventy-eight percent of the young men 
are church members. In the families where the father 
and mother are church members, but do not belong to 
the same church only fifty-five percent of the young 
men are church members. In families where but one 
of the parents is a church member, only fifty per cent 
of the young men are members of churches. Where 
the father and mother are both Catholics, only eight 
per cent of the young men are not church members. 
Where the father and mother are both Protestants, 
thirty-two per cent of the young men are not church 
members. Where one of the parents is a Catholic 
and the other a Protestant sixty-six per cent of the 
young men do not belong to church. Where the 
parents are members of Protestant churches, but do 
not belong to the same church, fifty per cent of the 
young men of these families are not church members. 



Young Men Less "Religiously Inclined f* 181 

Where one of the parents are Catholic, forty-four 
per cent of the young men do not belong to church. 
Where one of the parents is a Protestant, fifty-one per 
cent do not belong to church. 

In the blank the following question was asked : 
"Why are you not a church member?" To quote a 
few of the reason given in the order of their fre- 
quency: 'Indifference;' 'No reason;' 'Can be as good 
a Christian out of Church as in ;' 'No time because 
of work ;' 'Hadn't thought much about it.' 'Don't see 
the need.' It is interesting to note that a very small 
per cent of the men avow agnosticism. 

Another cjuestion was asked of the men who were 
not going to church, why they did not attend. Among 
the answers were : 'Sunday work ;' 'Indifference ;' 
'Not a Christian ;' 'More pleasure other places.' Here 
again only trwo or three out of all those answering this 
question spoke about being agnostic." 

However encouraging these statistics may seem, 
they nevertheless show us that there is a lack of inter- 
est in Church work with the young men. We feel 
that this is a wrong state of affairs. We sadly need 
to understand the great mass of persons who have cut 
loose from all organized religion. What is the state 
of mind of these persons? Is the religious instinct 
lacking in them? Are they deliberately stifling their 
highest aspirations? How do they feel when they 
think of God,' of death, of the facts of life? Have 
they found some substitute for the church which seems 
to yield the satisfaction which the religious instinct 
craves ? 



183 Pres. Northr^ip' s Opinion. 

Desirous to obtain information as to different views 
on these questions, I mailed the following series of 
interrogatories to several representative men, who 
I know are interested in the work and are broad 
minded enough to give it a fair consideration. 

First — Why do so few young men attend church 
regularly ? 

Second — Are young men less "religiously inclined" 
than young ladies? Does secret order membership 
tend to draw away from church ? 

Third — What can be done to awaken a more gen- 
eral interest for church work with the young men? 

Cyrus Northrup, President of Minnesota State 
University, gave the following answers : 

In answer to your first question, I will say 
that young men seek amusement, excitement or know- 
ledge ; they do not think that they get these in the 
churches. Then the sense of obligation to worship, 
and of the need of religion is not as strong as it was 
once. The element of jcar has been largely eliminated, 
and the love of God does not draw as strongly as the 
love of the world. "Eat drink and be merry" is the 
motto of one who wishes to enjoy the present and does 
not fear the future. A friend suggests that the idea 
no longer exists as generally as formerly, that atten- 
dance at church is a necessary part of religion. No 
doubt, that is true." 

^ >j; ^ ;(< ;}; 

Our County treasurer, D. C. Bell, is a business 
man that has taken a great deal of interest in church 
work. He gives the following answers : 



opinions of Bell and A rctander. 183 

"First — Partly due, no doubt, to the exactions of 
our intense modern l:)usiness life with its consequent 
physical and mental exhaustion when the Sabbath 
comes ; but even more I believe to the failure of the 
preaching of our times to appeal to practical and pur- 
poseful young manhood. The lack of a real, insistent 
message from God to the heart and conscience of 
men." 

In response to the second question, he says that his 
opinion is that young ladies are decidedly more re- 
ligious than young men ; as to secret order member- 
ship influence, he finds himself unable to give an 
answer. He suggests the following remedy : 

"Bring to them (the young men) a direct and 
authoritative message from God's Word ; one that 
appeals to the deepest needs of every mind, and that 
is not weakened by the "ifs" and "perhapses" of so 
called higher criticism. Cease to explain away God's 
sanctions and requirements, and man's personal ac- 
countability to his maker." 

>;; >!; >:< ;;< >u 

The professional man, John W. Arctander, LL. D., 
suggests the following answers : 

"First — a) Because church services are not made 
sufficiently attractive and interesting to draw the at- 
tention of young men. 

b) Because of their natural perversity. 

c) Because other attractions more to their taste, are 
drawing them in other directions. 

Second — I do believe, that young men are as a 
rule much less religiously inclined than young ladies. 



184 Rev. Traberf s Opi?tio7t. 

I look for the explanation of this fact largely In the 
fact, which can not be disputed, that there is less con- 
tamination in the life of a young lady than in a young 
man. 

I believe, that if the church did more to put its 
young forces to work, a far greater interest for the 
church would be awakened in the minds of the young 
men." 

H; ^ ^ ^ '^ 

The clergyman, G. H. Trabert, D. D., writes : 
"Some of the reasons why young men do not show 
the same interest in church and are less frequently 
seen in God's house seem to me to be as follows : 

First — The pernicious home influence by the ab- 
sorption of parents in the business of the world, tends 
to deflect young men from the interest in holy things. 

Second — Ungodly associates, who are persistent in 
drawing young Christians to haunts of pleasure on 
the Lord's day. 

Third — The many worldly attractions which ab- 
sorb the interests of young men and cause them to 
lose a taste for the house of God. 

Fourth — Increasing worldliness which more and 
more crowds out interest in the Church. 

Fifth — Pernicious social functions which affect 
}oung men and women, which are encouraged by 
public schools and universities, so that a young person 
is looked upon with desdain if he does not take part 
in the dance or go to the theatre. 

Sixth — The Sunday newspaper. 

Seventh — Secret orders to a considerable extent, 



Rnnedy Suggested. 185 

but these are almost as prevalent among women as 
among men. 

Eighth — The periodical literature of the day, edited 
mostly by skeptics, which throws doubt upon God's 
Word and is inclined to ridicule religion. 

The remedy : 

First — If possible, improve the home influence. 

Second — Appeal to them through the Gospel, and 
don't try to sugar coat religion by making it semi- 
worldly. 

Third — Make religion as attractive as possible by 
appealing to the love of Christ, rather than by appeal- 
ing to the appetite. 

(I regard church suppers, and some other kinds 
of church entertainments, as most pernicious, as they 
appeal to the material and sensual rather than to the 
spiritual side of man). 

Fourth — Give them work to do for Christ, and 
interest them in the welfare of their fellow men. 

Fifth — ^Make them the subject of special prayer, 
and make them feel that }0u are interested in their 
salvation." 

It is quite evident from these answers, that each 
class of men represented, views the phenomenon from 
his peculiar vantage point. 

These are some of the many possible suggestions 
to a solution of the perplexing question. The cita- 
tions given have all been valuable, but they do not 
exhaust the question. No one has ever attempted to 
do that, and far be it from me to presume that I can 
give a satisfactory answer. 



186 Source of Difficulty, 

When we look at this question from a psycholog- 
ical point of view, it becomes quite evident that the 
difference between the young men and the young 
ladies in this matter, is not one wherewith they are 
born. An eminent physician remarked when he lec- 
tured to his class, that it is as natural for a young 
boy to pray as it is for a young girl. In childhood 
there is no difference to distinguish them in such a 
way that we can say that little boys are less religiously 
inclined than the little girls. In infancy there is a 
similarity in this respect between the boys and the 
girls. This similarity continues usually up to the age 
of twelve, when the period of adolescence in most 
cases begins. Until that time both have been absorbed 
by the things in the world outside of them. It has 
been a time for precepts, and for the formation of 
habits. The attention has been occupied with things 
to be done and with things to be avoided. It is very 
important that the instruction during this period 
should contain nothing that in after life might become 
a stumbling block for the mind when it is more 
matured. It is a sad observation that boys, and girls 
as well, have wrong ideas taught them in the Sunday 
school. These appear less objectionable to the young 
lady, whose nature is rather disposed to fancy the 
good, tender and sympathetic. To the young man, 
with his more robust nature, these virtues, when they 
are overdrawn, become distasteful, as they are too 
unreal for his imagination. His masculine nature 
rather prefers the manly and heavy. In mature life, 
that becomes more real and true to him. It is too bad 



Adolescent Troubles. 187 

that much of our Sunday school teaching is a carica- 
ture on Christianity. It over-exaggerates its gentler 
virtues, while it overlooks entirely the sterner. To 
think of Jesus as incarnate pathos more than as incar- 
nate heroism is a perversion of facts. 

At the age of adolescence, the internal forces of 
the person begin to attract attention. This is the 
time of the awakening of the strong physical nature 
of man, a period which usually continues up to the 
age of twenty-five. As the sensibilities are stirred 
within the young man, he is even more deeply affected 
than the young lady. The young man becomes incom- 
municative, secretive, and lonely. If friendships are 
sought, it is with a class of associates that will under- 
stand him, and that can share troubles with him. 
In most cases this inclination is a source of injury, 
as it tends to impress on his soul talks and Ideas that 
are not of a religious nature, nor even pure. It is a 
fact experienced by all adults, that if at any time he 
has been tempted to impurity, it was during this age. 
For all other vices a taste had to be created ; but for 
this one the inclination lies in the nature of man. 

Starbuck has made quite an investigation of this 
subject by obtaining expressions from different young 
men as to their religious experiences. He relates that 
one-third of those that reported to him, state that 
sexual temptations are the most prominent. Dr. Coe 
says that it is perfectly clear that the most serious 
source of religious difficulty for adolescent males, lies 
preciselv in the masculine irritability. This sounds 
discouraging, but it would give heart to the struggling 



188 Adolesce7it Troubles ; Doubtifig. 

youth to know that those temptations are not evidence 
of badness, but are rather incident of the period of 
growth and of temporary and controllable conditions. 
During this period the young lady is more under the 
immediate influence of the home, while the boy gets 
at his associations outside of the home, where the 
sacred is not held in reverence and where purity is 
trodden under foot. With the awakening of the 
distinctive masculine in his nature, he is exposed to 
those influences that tend to make the mind worldly, 
and gives the devil a chance to put his stamp on him. 
This, to some extent may explain why there is a 
greater reverence for religion among young ladies 
than among young men. 

This condition is very often accompanied with 
doubting. Starbuck gives the age of doubting to be 
at 15 for girls and 18 for boys. It was during this 
period of life that Descartes learnt to doubt every- 
thing, a condition which brought sad results to his 
spiritual life. Seeing that there is a natural tendency 
for doubting, it is clear of course that a child should 
not be taught anything that he is likely to regard as 
false as soon as he grows up. Ghost stories to scare 
boys into the house at night and fairy tales to please 
them are both conducive to create a state of doubt. 
What about the pernicious idea of Santa Clans? — 
This inclination to doubt is not something absolutely 
bad ; it is only divine thirst that is manifested in this 
imperious manner. 

There is at this age an inclination to anger. The 
least provocation is often enough to raise the temper 



Adolesccjit Troubles. 189 

to a fever heat. Under this condition the heart pines 
away, and at the same time feels that it is justified 
in entertaining this state of mind. Young men are 
cautioned against cherishing anger, as it entirely un- 
nerves the personality, and gives evil the full 
swing of that which ought to be controlled by high 
reason, working under the cooling influence of reflec- 
tion and not under the tremendous pressure of vulgar 
indignation. 

During this period there is for the youth, and 
especially for the young man, a thirst for the absolute 
indubitable truth, the true inwardness and the com- 
plete subjectivizing of everything. There is the 
quickened conscience with its thirst for absolute 
righteousness ; the quickened intellect with its thirst 
for absolute truth ; the quickened aesthetic sense with 
its intuition of beauty that eye hath not seen and ear 
not heard ; the quickened social sense with its longing 
for perfect and eternal companionship. 

There is resting on the youth a sort of mental 
burden, a sense of unrest, a dissatisfaction with self, 
a vague lack, a general discontent, a feeling of wanting 
something and wanting to be something, that is not 
clear to one's self. This is the awakening of the 
consciousness to the knowledge that there is a thirst 
for God. This mental condition of adolescence is 
particularly favorable to deep religious impressions, 
and ought to be followed by life decisions in matters 
of religion. Dr. Coe finds that of 99 men^ between 
the ages of 18 and 36, 13 per cent were converted 
before the age of twelve, only 16 per cent after the 



190 Age for Conversion. Excuses. 

age of 20, thus leaving 71 per cent that were converted 
between the ages of 12 and 20. He finds that the 
average age for conversion is 16 4-ioths. This con- 
clusion is practically the same as that reached by 
Starbuck. Young men between the age of 12 and 20! 
Now is the time for you to repent, — if not already 
converted. As you grow older the chance of your 
getting into heaven is growing less day by day. As 
your character is established, it will be harder to break- 
away from the ruts into which you are drifting. Now, 
is the easiest moment of your life to become a Chris- 
tian. ''Remember also thy Creator in the day's of thy 
youth, before the evil days come and the years draw 
nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in 
them." (Eccl. 12:1). 

If I were to ask young men, why they do not 
accept Christianity, they would undoubtedly answer: 
T don't know.' They freely admit that the church 
is good and that religion does good ; but they can find 
no reason why they should possess it. Often they 
assert that they desire freedom. Young friends, let 
me show you the freedom that }ou desire : You 
desire to be free from all moral restrain, free from 
spiritual culture, free from any obligation to God, free 
to do whatever you desire, free to neglect wdiatever 
duties you hate to perform, and free to revel in the 
satisfaction of your carnal desires. And is that 
freedom better for you than the influence of the 
church ? As you desire a wrong freedom, you likewise 
desire a God of a different type from the God of the 
Christian. 



Excuses: Se/f-madc God. 191 

Hare says "i\Iany people make their own God, 
and he is nnich what the F'rench may mean when they 
talk of "Le Don Dieu," a very indulgent rather weak, 
near-at-hand when we want anything, but far away 
out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong." 
Our X'orwegian author, H. Ibsen, gives us the follow- 
ing artistic description of a God which our young 
men seem to desire : 



"J^ist netop saadan ser han ud, 

\'ort Lands, vort Folks Familiegud. 

Som Katoliken gj0r en Rolling 

Af Frelserhelten, gj0r I her 

Af Herren en affseldig Olding, 

Der er sin Alders Barndom user. 

I skiller Liv fra Tro og Lsere ; 

For ingen gjaelder det at vaere ; 

Jer Straeben er, jer Aand at hseve, 

Men ikke helt og fuldt at leve. 

I trgenger til for slig at slingre, 

En Gud, som ser igjennem Fingre. 

Men denne Gud er ikke min ! 

Min er Storm, hvor din er Vind, 

Ubf5ielig, hvor din er d^v, 

Alkj?erlig der, hvor din er sl0v ; 

Og han er ung, som Herkules, 

Ei nogen Gudfar paa de treds ! 

Hans Stemme slog med Lyn og Skraek, 

Da han som lid i Tornehaek 

for Moses stod paa Horebs Bjerg, 

Som Kjaempen staar for Dverges Dverg. 



192 Excuses : Object to Feelings, 

Han stansed Sol i Gibeons Dal 
Og gjorde Under itden Tal, 
Og skulde gjVre dem endnu, 
Hvis Slegten ei var slap, som du !" 

Men seek an excuse for not being so religious as 
women in the fact that they are less inclined to feel- 
ings. Now, young friend, if you cannot be a Chris- 
tian all full of feelings, then you can be one all full 
of facts. There are two distinct classes of Christians : 
those of the first class you may never see prostrated 
before God in earnest prayer ; their prayers are said 
in private only. If a sinner should come weeping, 
they would not gather round to pray with him, but 
silently they would intercede for him. If he should 
rise shouting they would shake hands with him and 
tell him they were glad he had started, but that is all. 
On the other hand, there is a class of members who 
can be relied upon to be present and take part in all 
the prayer meetings, who would rush to pray with a 
sinner, and who, if he should rise shouting would 
scarcely know whether they were in the body or out 
of the body. Nevertheless, these persons are not the 
most influential, in spite of their unction. They are 
often flighty and changeable in their moods, lack 
organization, and their judgement is not always to be 
trusted. The first class, stands firm as the rock. 
Changes of feelings do not efifect them. Their Chris- 
tian life is built on a firmer foundation. Would to 
God, that we had more of this class ; young friend, 
that is the sort of Christian you should become. 



Excuses : No Pleasures. 193 

There are others that fail to embrace Christianity 
because they see no pleasure in it. Truly there is 
no pleasure in it that will suit the depraved taste of 
the sin-loving mortal. Christianity yields deeper joys 
ond purer pleasurer than any that can be invented by 
mortal mind, or conceived in any human heart. Pascal 
says : 

"Let it not be imagined that the life of the good 
Christian must necessarily be a life of melancholy 
and gloominess, for he only resigns some pleasures 
to enjoy others infinitely greater. The pleasures of 
the religious man are easy and portable pleasure, such 
an one as he carries about in his bosom, without 
alarming either the eye or the envy of the world. — 
A man putting all his pleasure into that one, is like 
a traveler's putting all his goods into a jewel. The 
value is the same and the convenience greater." This 
is the sort of pleasure that young men ought to strive 
more for. Colton finds that there are three ways of 
bearing the ills of life ; by indifference, which is the 
most common ; by philosophy, which is the most 
ostentatious ; and by religion, which is the most prac- 
tical. 

It is again argued that men have not the time for 
worship and religious excercises. But witness, for 
example, the luxuriant growth of clubs, mutual benefit 
insurance societies, secret orders, and other social 
agencies, at the very time when it is so hard to get a 
man to go to church. At the very period too, when 
the workingman's day has been generally lowered 
from ten to nine or eight hours, the church finds her- 



194 Excuses : Not for Educated Minds. 

self increasingly incapable of commanding any part 
of the workingman's time. Is talk of time a valid 
excuse? Josh Billings says: "It is a statistical fact 
that the wicked work harder to reach hell, than the 
righteous to enter heaven." 

Many say, that Christianity cannot satisfy the 
minds of the modern educated men, and that there 
consequently, is an exodus from the church of men 
of education. This is not true. lOO years ago i per 
cent of the students at Yale University confessed 
Christianity ; now, 59 per cent of the students are 
church members. Sylvester Scovell voiced the edu- 
cated sentiment in his address before the World's 
Congress of Religions at the Columbian Exposition 
in the following words: "I dare say that no man is 
fit to be an educator, in the just sense of the term, 
who so fearfully and fatally mistakes the nature with 
which he is to deal as to deny its immortality." The 
argument that Christianity is not good enough for 
the modern educated world is not sustained by statis- 
tics. Never were there as many educated men devot- 
ing their time to Christian work as now-a-days. In 
1866 there was one student Y. M. C. Association, ten 
years later there were 35, increasing in 1886 to 226 
and in 1896 to 480, while 1900 shows that there are 
577 Y. M. C. A.'s among the students. In 1866, the 
total Y. M. C. A. membership was 15,498, while in 
1900 it was 268,477, which is an increase of over 
5,000 over five years ago. 

A singular instance of an educated man's attitude 
to the Bible is furnished in the life of Abraham 



Lincoln and Webster. 195 

Lincoln. In spite of his childhood's impressions, he, 
like so many others, became a prey to the influences 
which he was subjected to. He drifted away so that 
he became almost an entirely pronounced infidel, as 
he associated much with that class of men. He was 
saturated with the writings of Tom Paine and the 
French atheists. What preaching he heard, if any at 
all, was of the poorest kind for the soul. It is not at 
all surprising, that he fell in for the time with the 
rampant spirit of infidelity. After entering his. career 
as a man of great responsibility, he wrote, "I should 
be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this foot- 
stool, if I, for any day, thought that I could discharge 
the duties, which have come upon me since I came 
into this place, without the aid and enlightenment of 
One, who is stronger and wiser than others." 

Daniel Webster said : "Political eminence and pro- 
fessional fame fade away and die with all things 
earthly. Nothing of character is really permanent 
but virtue and personal worth. These remain. What- 
ever of excellence is wrought into the soul itself 
belongs to both worlds. Real goodness does not attach 
itself merel}' to this life ; it points to another world. 
Political or professional reputation can not last for- 
ever ; but a conscience void of offence before God and 
man, is an inheritance for eternity. Religion, there- 
fore, is a necessary and indispensable element in any 
great human character. There is no living without 
it. Religion is the tie that connects man with his 
Creator, and holds him to his throne. If that tie be 
all sundered, all broken, he floats away, a worthless 



196 Are Bad Young Men ' ' More Masculine .?' ' 

atom in the universe ; its proper attraction is gone, 
its destiny thwarted and its whole future nothing but 
darkness, desolation and death. A man with no sense 
of religious duty is he, whom the Scriptures describe in 
such terse but terific language, as living "without 
God in the world." Such a man is out of his proper 
being, out of the circle of all his happiness, out of 
the circle of all his duties, and away, far away, far, 
far away, from the purpose of his creation." 

Is it not strange that there are so many young 
men who will have nothing to do with the church, 
but prefer the contaminated atmosphere of the gamb- 
ling den and the brothel ? They rather like to hear 
the laugh of scorn than to listen to a sacred anthem ; 
rather prefer curses and blasphemy than a sermon. 
Is it possible that these things are more masculine, 
and the church more feminine? — If so, we feel like 
praying that God shall save us from being masculine ; 
but thanks to God ! that is not masculine, but what 
is call so is true deviltry. That which is too feminine 
for the taste of some is so only because their taste is 
depraved. They have trained themselves to those 
vices until they have lost taste for that which is holy 
and learned to love the unholy. In the place of going 
upward on the path of a holy life, they go 
downwards on the path to destruction. S. T. Cole- 
ridge fittingly remarks: "If a man is not rising up- 
wards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking 
downward to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. 
The most savage men are not beasts ; they are worse, a 
great deal worse." If you have trained yourselves 



The Self-possessed Votmg Man. 197 

to become bad, is it not equally reasonable that you 
can train yourselves to be good? If you have trained 
yourselves to love the world, can you not also train 
yourselves to love the church and God ? It seems that 
our young men rather choose to be ruled by the lower 
part of their natures than by their higher intuitions. 
How would you think a city would fare, in which the 
scavanger rules and not the man in the citadel? A 
young man who will not be ruled by his religious 
sentiments is like such a city. 

The beautiful young man is he who has become 
the master of himself. No passions sway him as his 
higher instinct rules him. This higher instinct is not 
love of lust, pleasure, company, money, honor, or 
education ; it is love of God. This is free from all 
that is degrading, and is the very essence of all that 
is ennobling. What grieves us, is the fact that so 
many of our young men will but cry: "crucify Christ 
and give us Barabas loose !" They rather choose as 
master the Barabas of sin than the Saviour of purity. 
Rather than godliness, they prefer worldliness. Would 
to God that more of our young men could make for 
themselves the discovery that ''godliness with content- 
ment is a great gain." (I Tim. 6:6). It ''is profit- 
able for all things, having promises for the life that 
now is, and of that which is to come." (I Tim. 4:8). 
You can not lose by it. If it seems to bring you a 
present loss, it will nevertheless bring a permanent 
reward. A singular incident is related of Mr. Girard, 
the infidel Philadelphia millionary, who ordered one 
of his clerks to work on Sunday. The young man 



198 Godliness Profitable. 

refused to do so by replying quietly, ''Mr, Girard, I 
can't work on Sunday." "You know our rules." 
"Yes I know, I have a mother to support, but I can't 
work on Sunday." "Well, step up to the desk, and 
the cashier will settle with you." For three weeks 
the young man could find no work. One day a banker 
came to Girard to ask if he could recommend a man 
as cashier in the bank. To him Girard said, that he 
knew of this young man. "But you dismissed him," 
said the enquirer. Mr. Girard responded : "Yes, 
because he would not work on Sunday. A man who 
would lose a place for conscience' sake would make a 
trustworthy cashier." The young man was given the 
position, which he still holds. Yes, godliness with 
contentment is a great gain. It brings blessings in 
numerable to the world. No happier lot than to be 
a child of God, with a clean conscience, a good name 
which is rather to be chosen than great riches, a noble 
soul whose aim is the Star of Righteousness, Jesus 
Christ. It is a glorious thing at the end of life to be 
able to say with Paul : "I have fought the good fight, 
I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, hence- 
forth there is laid up for me the crown of righteous- 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 
to me at that day." (II Tim. 4:7-8). 




III. 

THE YOUNG LADY. 




HT is with diffidence that I begin the con- 
sideration of this subject; not that I feel 
less interested in the spiritual, intellectual, 
and physical welfare of the young lady 

than in that of the young man ; but be- 
cause I know, that I am to consider a 
subject where observation and study must 
stand alone without the support of per- 
sonal experience. In speaking to young 
men, I have often refered to my own life 
for suggestions, as I describe the billows and shoals 
of familiar waters. Here I must venture into seas that 
have not been made familiar by personal experience. 
Yet, they have become somewhat familiar through a 
close study o-f the charts furnished by the many lives 
that it has been my privilege to observe, and also by 
the books that I have had the opportunity to consult. 
A woman. Of the two human factors under the 
sun, she is, in many respects, the greater. In the early 
dawn of human history, she grasped the eternal des- 
tiny of the race, and by her fall into sin hurled it into 
the ruin of error and misery. Wherever Eve led, 
Adam followed without protest. Ke seemed spell- 

(^99) 



200 IVojnan's Iiiflueiice. 

bound by her power and influence. Adam had sighed 
and longed for a companion, and when he got one, 
he found in her his supplement, advisor, and even 
master. Ever since that fatal error, has the human 
family sighed and groaned for the follies and foibles 
of women. But, if women brought humanity into 
ruin, through her came also the issue to life. It was 
the "seed of the woman that shall bruise the head of 
the serpent" and crush the power of evil. This is the 
work in which woman shines best to-day ; she over- 
comes evil in herself, and is the conquering angel 
who shall become victorious over the evil in the 
world. So, if through the disobedience of one woman 
sin and misery came, then shall also the salvation and 
mercy be administered through the consecration of 
women. If the human family inherits grief because 
of woman's frailties, it shall also receive through her 
the issue, out from the fall into the great and glorious 
liberty, not of Paradise but of Heaven. Oh, man, 
that can speak slightingly of woman ! Remember, 
that if she lost you Paradise, she gained you Heaven. 
The young lady is mother of the matured woman. 
She is a bundle of possibilities not fully developed, but 
which are gradually being unfolded as the years go 
by. There is no manifest distinction in childhood 
between a boy and a girl. Both have the same desires, 
and what pleases the one satisfies the other. Though 
a boy may often find more pleasure in possessing a 
jack-knife, while the girl will take best to a doll, yet 
these likes cannot be said to mark any sexual dis- 
tinction. These likes are taught more by observation 



The Girl. 201 

than suggested by intuition. If in some cases there 
be difiference in tendencies that distinguish a boy from 
a girl, they are no more defined and common than are 
the differences between the boy that develops into an 
artist and the boy that develops into a mechanic. 
That which in after-life produces the radical difference 
between the young lady and the young man, lies still 
hidden, as the forces of nature are yet dormant. 

The girl lives on in the happiness and innocency-of 
childhood. No bad inclinations mar her disposition ; 
no sorrows for the present steal away her happiness, 
and no fear or dread for the future brings sadness 
and grief to her heart. As she grows older, child- 
hood's joys are put aside, and the young lady comes 
forth in her defined personality. The hidden factors 
unfold themselves and the natural forces develope 
into activety. Through a hard struggle are being 
established those functions that are not vital to her- 
self, but which are essential to humanity. 

As the voice of the Life-principle is heard, and as 
the signs of creative power are seen, the constructive 
activity is going on so fast that it seems to absorb all 
vitality. There is then a disposition to be irritable and 
nervous. We look at her and find that she appears 
quite changed. She begins to feel dissatisfied with 
the world and with herself. She weeps easily, and 
often over nothing at all. A vague and romantic 
feeling, that she cannot describe or account for, steals 
over her, and she becomes inclined to the reading of 
sensational stories, and often finds a charming delight 
in the thoughts that they call forth. She feels a 



203 Critical Period. 

desire for company, and this too often leads her into 
the pernicious habit of flippancy and coquetry. 

Where these tendencies are not wisely guarded 
against, and kept under control, but are rather stimu- 
lated by such romances and pert jests about associates 
that awaken sentimental fancies, the young lady will 
be prematurely hurried into womanhood. 

I would that all young ladies should know, that this 
is a time of life when such stimulants are especially 
ruinous. It will produce undue activities, and break 
up the harmony of the person. It brings into the 
mind and body the poison that in after-life will be 
impossible to extricate. If we could peep into the 
calendar of the unfortunates, and see the names there 
catalogued, we should find that those women that are 
now the scum of society and the scorn of humanity, 
began their downward course just by granting them- 
selves such license and indulgence. Ladies, you should 
blush at the suggestion of a flippant fancy or at the 
presentation of a sentimental thought. Turn away 
from those things in horror and disgust. If you 
cherish them only for a moment, they will lead you 
astray, and your soul that was once as pure as the 
morning light will gradually assume the hues of mid- 
night gloom. 

Many are the ladies that deeply regret having per- 
mitted their minds one solitary reflection of that nature. 
It lead them away from the paths of purity in 
thoughts, words, and deeds. They mourn their loss, 
when they feel that they are no longer the virgins 
that thev once were. Yet, thev are unable to tear loose 



Secret Difficulties. 203 

from the sin that has bound them. They are anxious 
that none should be cognizant of their condition, and 
they beheve that it is known only to God and them- 
selves. They are well aware that they have forfeited 
the pure conscience that fearlessly could face God and 
innocently associate with their fellow mortals. Know- 
ing that all the other wrongs that they may be guilty 
of are without the body, they feel so much worse for 
having made of the body, which is the temple of God, 
an abode for evil. (I Cor. 6:18-20). As the practice 
becomes more frequent the body begins to suffer, and 
the wise can read the trouble and know the cause. 
There is a gradual loss of memory and a decline in 
health. Instead of the robust and strong features 
there are hollow eyes and pale cheeks. Instead of 
being happy and obliging, gentle and kind, she will 
become peevish, irritable, nervous and disobedient. 
As purity is fast waning, gradually modesty yields to 
boldness, until the work of ruin is openly completed. 
It is certainly sad to fall into these ruts. But most 
of those unfortunate ones did not drift away on their 
own suggestion. Some unwary person, meaning no 
harm, started the ball a-rolling. One word kindled 
the fire that thousands cannot extinguish, even if every 
one be steeped in a mother's tears. When the fire is 
all ablaze, the "unintentional" seducer turns away in 
disgust and horror. As he notes the issue, he cannot 
find words strong enough for his denunciation. Far 
better were it if remorse smote such a person, than 
that he washes his hands and in feigned innocency 
declares himself guiltless. But their blood shall be 



204 Results of hidulgettce. 

on the head of the sensational novelist and the flippant 
jesters. Let ns keep in mind how easily such serious 
conditions are brought about ; let us recall the words 
of Jesus : "Whoso shall cause one of these little ones 
that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him 
that a great mill stone should be hanged about his 
neck and that he should be sunk in the depths of the 
sea." (Math. i8:6). .If all that have been guilty of 
such indecorous acts were to suffer according to this 
injunction, the bottom of the ocean v/ould be covered 
with the bones of men and women, resting on a bed 
of mill stones. Many that are respected, yes, even 
esteemed, would then lie there side by side with a 
Delilah, a Pharaoh's wife, and the men of Gibeah. 
(Jud. i6; Gen. 39:7-23; Jud. chs. 19 and 20.) 

If it is sad to fall into these sins, either spontane- 
ously or through the instrumentality of others, it is 
evident that the continuation therein must bring dis- 
astrous results. It destroys the mental powers ; it 
blotches the complexion, dulls the eye, takes away the 
strength and may even lead to insanity. 

We have now described the dangers and evils that 
must come if virtue and purity are not maintained. 
But what of those that are unfortunate enough to 
have been made captive by lust. Are they doomed to 
eternal damnation ? Can they not be rescued from the 
power of those sins that are "against our own bodies"? 
(I Cor. 6:18). These questions apply to boys and 
girls alike, and the remedy for both is the same. Yes, 
there is a cure for this evil. It is not found on the 
shelf of any apothecary, nor can any doctor prescribe 



The Rejuedy. 205 

it, even if he controlled all the elements of chem- 
istry and their various compounds, and could manip- 
ulate them according to all the laws of physics. There 
is no adequate physical remedy for a moral evil, and 
I urge such unhappy victims to shun, as the plague 
itself, the doctors that advertise as specialists for this 
moral disease. It is a burning shame that these quacks 
are allowed space in our newspapers to display their 
big advertisements, and still more that they are given 
the use of our mail system to spread their contaminat- 
ing productions. I do not mean to say, that the physical 
evil cannot be reduced by physical means. But then 
get it from your family physician. Even though it is 
hateful to make revelation to those that know you, 
rather bear that than run the risk of ruin in the hands 
of so-called specialists. Is there no positive remedy? 
Yes, there is, and I am glad to point it out. It is the 
moral and spiritual power to overcome moral and 
spiritual evil, which is obtained at the Cross of Cal- 
vary. Look, and live ! A firm resolution to live a 
moral life may sometimes help, but if this is followed 
up by an acceptance of Christ, then the remedy is 
completed and permanent. The wise doctor's cure 
does not get at the root of the evil; he can read only 
the physical organism. The cure from a decision to 
live morally lays a too heavy burden on the nature 
with weakened virtues ; but the Christ cure gets at 
the root of the evil, and gives strength to overcome 
and to abstain. The remedy is none but the "Balm 
of Gilead." 

We have followed this development from its cause 



206 The Noble Character. 

to its consequences and find that it is through a hard 
struggle that the interests of a young lady are being 
differentiated. On her victory in this struggle depends 
her woe and weal. Through successful combats she 
becomes purified and ennobled. When her personality 
is fully developed, she represents to us virtue and 
nobility. Safely piloted through these seas she stands 
out, as the queen of purity, and in her natural modesty 
she wields the all subduing scepter of love, and is 
enthroned in spiritual beauty. Her gentle hand, lov- 
ing and tender look are a greater power in the world 
than a thousand Hercules. The fragrance of her life 
is the inspiration of the Church and the joy of the 
home. This is the result of a maidenhood untouched 
by the contaminating influences of sin. 

Now, may I describe to you some of the many 
mistaken ideas as to what a young lady is. I would 
beg of you all to shun as a pest the company of any 
person that may be called an exponent of any of the 
ideas that I caution you against. Should you feel that 
you are yourself inclined towards them, then will 
I hope that my words shall stir within you an aversion 
that will cause you to put on the breaks and inaugu- 
rate a reformatory policy. With this accomplished I 
shall feel that my efforts have not been put forth in 
vain. 

The young lady is by nature such that the home 
is her special sphere of activity. As Pope says : 

"In public stations men sometimes are shown, 
A woman's seen in private life alone : 



Beauty not Facial Charm. 207 

Our bolder talents in full view display 'd, 
Your virtues open fairest in the shade." 

This should not discourage the young lady, and make 
her think that she has nothing to aspire for, and thus 
fall back into a cornatic state similar to that of the 
women in the Zenana. The young lady is not justi- 
fied in being careless as to her appearance. It is her 
duty to make herself stand forth in her full virgin 
beauty ; but not for display. Queen Vashti, who re- 
fuse to be made into a creature of display, is among 
the most admirable of all women of the Bible. The 
young Esther, who did not try to improve her looks 
by artifice, was selected for her beauty by the great 
King Ahasuerus. 

With some women facial charm is considered a 
prime necessity to beauty. Too often it is the beauty 
of complexion and texture that is sought for, and those 
charms that fashion dictates are the most coveted. 
So earnestly do some aspire to possess these that if 
nature has not bestowed them, they will try to supply 
what nature has not granted to them. The folly 
of this hankering is best demonstrated at the picnic 
grounds on a rainy or very hot day. How ridiculous 
to think that beauty can be stuck on upon the surface 
to remain until worn off by sun or rain ! How humil- 
iating it is, to have it removed before the eyes of 
friends ! Would that I could make you feel that it is 
equally humiliating to stoop to such means of hypo- 
crisy ! 

Another thing so much desired is soft hands. The 



208 Two Types of Women, 

ideal hand is that which has nothing- harder to do but 
to thump the piano, to turn the leaves of sensation- 
alism, or the journal of fashion. The hand must not 
be allowed to become callous by work, for that destroys 
the beauty. Yes, if beauty be only skin deep, I admit 
that work does destroy it. But that is not your stand- 
ard of beauty. Let me describe to you two types from 
which you may make your choice. 

The first is a woman with a calisthenic bearing; 
her hair is of that color which most mortals admire. 
You can not tell whether is it so by nature or artifice. 
Her face seems formed after the best model of Grecian 
sculptors. Her eyes are full of fancy and fire. Her 
hands are as soft as the cushion's velvet lining. Her 
voice is like that of a lark ; at times it resembles the 
mocking bird. It changes with her disposition. Her 
gait is such that it betrays familiarity with the laws 
of the waltz or the polka. This is the exterior aspect 
of the first type. 

We shall now delineate the second type. Her 
form is not so sprightly, and her muscles are not 
so set, but there is a secret dignity about her whole 
frame. Her hair is not so romantic. Her face has 
no similarity to the Greek art. On it are the furrows 
and wrinkles produced by the chisel of sorrow and 
care. Her blue eyes are rather sad, but bespeak a 
heavenly depth of love and tenderness. Her hands 
bear the marks of toil and. care, and her gait is too 
chaste and firm ever to have been quickened from the 
cadence of love and duty to that of the quadrille and 



What tJny stand for. 209 

the mazurka. These are the exterior aspects, let us 
now look at the interior. 

We turn again to the woman of the beautiful form 
and fair face. Her soft hands, tripping gait and 
alluring eyes tell us what her likes and dislikes are. 
She wants four hours a day for her toilet ; two hours 
at her meals ; two hours at novel reading ; three hours 
for company ; one hour at the piano and four hours 
in the ball-room. The remaining eight hours are 
for rest and must not be intruded upon by any call 
to duty. She is too beautiful for work and considers 
herself too noble for charity. When in society her 
voice is as sweet as honey, but at home it is as bitter 
as gall. Her exterior is attractive, but she carries in 
her bosom a hell that may break loose at any moment. 
Such types are not found only in the homes of the 
opulent, but are quite common, even among the 
middle class. The desires are there and if they cannot 
feed on fashion they will ferment fury. 

With disgust we turn away from that charming 
beauty to look again at the other type. Her hand 
has been trained to do work and her heart longs to 
do good. She is Christlike. Not to he served but to 
serve, is her life principle. Those eyes are suggestive 
of a heaven full of peace and joy. Her feet are used 
to walk in the path of peace, and she has not a 
moment to spare for idle trifling. Wherever she 
comes sunshine beams around her, and happiness fol- 
lows in her wake. Is she beautiful ? Her features 
are not the finest, but her charm is that of an angel. 



210 "Things are not what they seein.''^ 

whose duty and privilege it is to execute the will 
of God. 

Would that I could convince you that true beauty 
is not a natural gift, or one that can be acquired only 
by a careful toilet. Those helps to beauty are not to 
be scorned ; but they must not be overestimated. 
True beauty is something that can be acquired by all ; 
but the path to it leads through assiduous application 
and consecrated devotion. The kitchen is a far better 
place to acquire it than the parlor ; the sick-room 
yields more of it than does the finest drawing-room. 
When you search for beauty do not be deceived 
by the thought that it is found in the outward ap- 
pearance. A beautiful exterior may adorn a wretched 
interior, as does the fine rind of the poisened fruits 
found near the Dead Sea ; or a repulsive exterior may 
enclose a most useful interior, as does the hard rind of 
the coca-nut. We can not be safe in judging from 
outside appearance, for "Things are not what they 
seem." To use our Norwegian proverb, we must 
learn not to 

"Skue Hunden paa Haarene 

eller Fanten paa Fillerne." 
For beauty we look deeper. We begin to inquire into 
what things are in reality. Then we shall find that 
the beauty which is lasting is the beauty of the soul. 
It may be hid under an exterior whose charms are 
not the greatest ; but from the interior beams a soul 
whose beauty is everlasting. Years do not wear it 
out. Age with its furrows and silvery crown serve 
only to make it more attractive. External beauty 



A Mother s Beauty. 311 

weeps at the loss of charms that sorrow and age 
completely destroy, while nobility of the soul makes 
the world feel that beauty grows stronger day by day. 
This is a beauty that adds strength and virtue to 
those that surround it. Artificial charm is a beauty 
that takes moral strength even from the good, and 
leaves them to the cruel mercy of a fancy running 
wild. Neither external beauty nor artificial charm 
is the ideal of beauty that you see and love in your 
mother. Hers was a beauty that did not charm but 
inspired confidence and created virtue. Never is a 
tender mother more beautiful to us than when, with 
wrinkled brow and trembling hand, she bids us the 
last farewell. There is no picture that I love more 
than that of my kind mother, as I see her standing in 
the home door- way, on the morning of August 31st 
1901, and beckoning me her last farewell, as she says: 
'T hope to see you again very soon." But that very 
soon will not be until I also have trod the cold waters 
of the river Jordan. Her noble life and beautiful 
character shall ever lead me on to strive after the 
beauty of soul which was hers. 

It is quite natural that the lady, with her innate 
sense of beauty should be a lover of the beautiful. 
But ladies are too often completely blinded to the 
lavish beauty of nature, while their soul is bent on the 
beauty of artifice. It is a common but sad mistake 
to think that beauty is enhanced by the fashion of 
dress and manner. It is well for us not to disregard 
these ; for none is respected for studiously avoiding 
them. Nor do we respect those that yearly spend 



212 Fashion Expensive, 

so much time in the study of the journals of fashion. 
A good rule is : 

"In words of fashions the same rule will hold : 
Alike fantastic if too new or old ; 
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." 

It is expensive to be the slave of fashion. How 
many fathers do not find it an intolerable burden to 
furnish their daughters with all that fashion dictates ! 
He must do it if he is not to be henpecked, for the 
commands of fashion are explicit and definite : Thou 
shall ! It hardly ever stops to inquire if the thing 
desired is in keeping with the capacity of the purse. 
If it only is in keeping with fashion then it must 
come forth at any hazard. If it be not so that this 
question overrules all other considerations, then it is 
nevertheless true that the questions of ''what shall we 
eat, what shall we drink, and wherewith shall we 
clothe ourselves," take precedence of the vital ques- 
tion: "What shall we do to be saved." 

Fashion brings you no worthy return for your 
expenses, sometimes not even comfort. Pray did you 
ever hear of any one that was loved and respected 
for high-fashion? Did you ever hear that fashion 
in one single instance created harmony? Have we 
not much more often seen that fashion creates jealousy 
and envy, by creating nonsensical rivalry? It never 
creates one iota of true happiness and wellbeing; but 
brings bushels of pride and wounded dignity. 



Fashioji Foolish. Sl3 

''Wherefore do you spend money for that which is 
not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth 
not?" (Is. 55:2). 

Fashion is foohsh. I have just intimated that 
fashion leads to pride. How often do we not find 
that people pride themselves over things that they 
do not possess. Maybe over a vesture that is not 
paid for? If paid for, it is often with the price that 
ought to be given for food and ordinary comforts. 
Often have I found people dressed in silks and satins, 
while their spreads have been quite scanty. Many 
times you will find a father and a mother that are 
hard working; but their fashionable daughter makes 
living miserable for them. They cannot deny their dar- 
ling anything that she may want, if they can supply it. 
They will give it to her at their own sacrifice. I 
have seen mothers dress very plainly, just to save for 
their daughters. I have also seen mothers dressed in 
highest fashion, whose children have been ragged and 
dirty. Their toilet has been well looked after ; but 
their homes are full of filth, and reeking with vermine. 
While maidens, they had nothing else to do than to 
care for their own fancies. When family cares were 
added, she was too much of a fashion slave to be able 
to free herself even if she saw her own offspring 
suffer. 

It is foolish to pride ourselves in the feathers that 
have been stolen from the backs of a bird or because 
we have been able to creep into the lamb's or the 
seal's skin. How silly, is it not, to think ourselves 
fine when we have robbed the silk-worm larva of 



214 Winning Ma7tners. 

its cocoon for onr own adornment ! We should rather 
be ashamed to acknowledge our need of making such 
robbery. The feathers adorn the bird and make him 
beautiful, the fleece is becoming to the lamb, and the 
skin to the seal ; but it never occurred to them to take 
pride in their vestments. 

We often meet with mistaken ideas of what win- 
ning manners are. They are not those you have read 
and practiced up from some book containing the rules 
of etiquette. May I give you one that will apply in 
every case: Be natural, but see that your nature is 
not selfwilled and stubborn. And be not wise in your 
own conceit. (Rom. 12:16). Don't let that forced 
giggle take the place of the innocent smile and the 
hearty laugh of childhood. Giggling is not loved 
by anybody. If young men seem to be pleased by 
it, they are so only because they consider you a sort 
of a plaything that can be made to work automat- 
ically. But remember that he has lost the best boon 
of God, who stoops to such trifling. Shun him 
as you would shun a viper. If you don't stop gigg- 
ling and avoid such associates, you shall find that you 
are fast drifting into the awful habit of flirtation. 
You know very well that flirtation is not winning 
manners. I am sorry to say, that there are young 
ladies whose lives are not measured by the number 
of years and new moons, but by the number of beaux 
that they have had. Dr. Mary Wood-Allen says: 'T 
knew a girl whose chief delight seemed to be in 
getting young men to fall in love with her, only to 
cast them aside when tired with their adoration. She 



IVinnino- Manners. Honesty. 215 

called this fun, but it was cruelty. In olden times 
men amused themselves by throwing Christians to 
wild beasts and watch them being torn to pieces. 
This was their idea of fun, and the flirt's idea of 
amusement seems to be of the same order. She plays 
with the man as the cat with the mouse, and exper- 
iences no pangs of conscience when, torn and bleeding 
in heart, she tosses him aside for a new victim." 

The most winning manners are not those of affect- 
ation, but those that come naturally from a pure heart 
and a consecrated life. These cannot be learned from 
any Encyclopedia of Etiquette, but are best acquired 
in the laboratory of consecrated duty. The life that 
is prompted by love and ruled by commion sense will 
produce manners that are winning of men, and to the 
honor of God. Paul says it is the duty of every 
mother to "train the young women to love their hus- 
bands, to love their children, to be sober-minded, 
chaste, workers at home, kind." (Tit. 2:5). 

Be honest. I need not tell you to keep your tongue 
from telling lies, for that you hate and would not be 
found guilty of. But be also honest in deeds and 
conduct. Do not say: "O, my dear Jane!" when 
you feel that you hate her with all your heart. A 
Jael that can speak words of assurance and comfort 
when she means death, is not desirable in time of 
peace. (Judges 4:17 seq.) Feigned friendship often 
finds a place among ladies, where, under similar con- 
ditions, open enmity would exist among men. Both 
are objectionably bad. But, if there is any distinction 
to be made, we must admit that feigned friendship 



216 Accomplishmeitts. 

is the worse. It is the deceiving kiss of a Judas. 
Hatred in the heart is manslaughter, but feigned 
sweetness adds deceitfulness to the crime. For the 
opponent it is far better to know that the enemy is in 
the field that he may prepare to meet him ; but if he 
comes with the sweetness of a Hushai even the largest 
Absalom must fall. (II Sam. i6:i6 seq.) 

A young lady often strives for accomplishments. 
Indeed, they are very desirable, but they are not ab- 
solutely necessary to life. It is a wrong idea that 
we are not to consider a young lady as worth much 
unless she can play the piano, sing trainedly, or use 
the painting-brush to some degree of perfection. I 
mean to find no fault with any of these; but I desire 
to assert as firmly as possible that the greatest of all 
accomplishments is not a hand that is familiar with 
the key board of the piano, or that can transform ideas 
to images ; but it is the hand that is skilled in the 
work of love and charity. It is not the eye that is 
sensitive to variegated beauty, but the eye that sees 
where help is wanted. It is not the ear that readily 
can detect discord, but that which hears the prompt- 
ings of a good conscience and its call to duty. It is 
not the heart that throbs for amusements, but that 
which beats warmly for Christian work. 

Jenny Lind with her soul stirring song and Rosa 
Bonheur with her animated paintings gained the 
admiration of the world by accomplishments. But 
Esther gained the love of her whole nation and the 
respect of the world by her heroic act of mitigation, 
which love for her people gave her power to under- 



Accomplishments Destructible. 217 

take. Far better is it to have a few that love us for 
our unselfish devotion than a host that admire us for 
our accomplishments. Those that love you will stand 
by you ; but those that seek you for admiration do not 
think much of yon, but think a great deal of your 
skill. When your skill is gone, as the hand begins 
to shake and the vocal cord to tremble, your admirers 
will also go to seek another object upon which to 
lavish their admiration. Or, ere you know, some 
other orb may rise whose accomplishments are greater 
than yours. Then you shall soon find that your 
hangers-on no longer hang on. They leave you to 
yourself and all that you have left is a bitter feeling 
of envy to the new attraction and a heart full of dis- 
appointments. The beautiful woman with her many 
accomplishments does not last long. She fades as 
the rose. 

"And where is she, whose diamond eyes 
Galconda's purest gems outshone? 

Whose roseate lips of Eden breathed? 
Say, where is she, the beauteous one? 

Beneath yon willows drooping shade. 

With eyes now dim and lips now pale, 

She sleeps in peace. Read on her urn, 
"A broken heart." This tells her tale." 

The works of the consecrated woman shall stand. 
In the lives of many women we have repeated what 
Christ said to Judas : "Wheresoever the Gospel shall 



218 True Womanhood. 

be preached throughout the whole world, that also 
which this woman bath done shall be spoken of for 
a memorial of her." (Mark. 14:9). Ladies, the 
best accomplishments are the accomplishments of un- 
selfish service ! 

A young lady should always remember that she 
is the temple of God, and that it ought to be kept 
undefiled, (I Cor. 6:15 seq.) and be dedicated to the 
service of the Lord. She feels that beauty is not that 
expressed in fineness of features, but is that quality 
of the soul, which becomes more attractive by being 
used in the unselfish service of God and humanity. 
It is the diamond that is being polished by continual 
use, until, in the glory of God's kingdom, it shall 
refract the rays of his love in all the resplendent 
beauty of eternal majesty. By usefulness she strives 
to make the world happier and heaven on earth more 
real. She has no motive but self-sacrifice, and no 
ambition but to do good. In her hands money will 
not be spent for detrimental fashion or for question- 
able amusements. She recoils from the morals of 
the stage and hates the sensationalism of the perfor- 
mance. Her mind is too pure for the filth of the 
novel, and her tongue too chaste for flattering or 
slander. Her eyes are too sacred for the alluring 
glances before which man is an unarmed coward. 
Her heart is the fountain of purity, gushing forth in 
innumerable springs of love. She preserves the 
health of her body as a sacred boon. She never 
jeopardizes it by nefarious luxury or by violent 
games. Her time is not idled away, but is spent in 



True Womanhood. 219 

the service of the Lord, and for the good of herself 
and fellowmen. Her body and soul came from him, 
and shall return to him improved and consecrated. 

**Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, 
Not she denied him with unholy tongue ; 
She, while Apostles shrank, could dangers brave, 
Last at the cross and earliest at the grave.** 




THE YOUNG LADY AND THE HOME. 




ABOUT the year 1823, the young American 
poet and playwright, John Howard 
Payne, had drifted to Paris, and made his 
abode in a garret on the topmost story 
of a house in the Palais Royal. Spend- 
thriftiness often reduced him to purse 
pinchings attended with dejection and 
despair. Under these conditions, and 
with the sounds of the happy crowds on 
the Boulevards below came to him 

spontaneously as a sigh, the opening words of the 

following immortal song: 



" 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ; 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
Which, seek thro' the world, is ne'er met with else- 
where. 



I gazed on the moon as I thread the drear wild. 
And feel that my mother now thinks of her child ; 
As she looks on that moon from our own cottage door, 
Thro' the woodbine whose fragrance shall cheer me 
no more. 

(220) 



Wliat Home is. 231 

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain ; 
Oh, give me my lowly thatch 'd cottage again ; 
The birds singing gaily, that came at my call ; 
Give me them, and that peace of mind, dearer than all." 

"Home, home, sweet, sweet home, 

There's no place like home, 
Oh, there's no place like home." 

The word home brings sweet music, song of birds, 
"beautiful poetry, and the peal of bells to our hearts. 
These sounds penetrate into the depths of our hearts 
and are called forth vividly by the memory of home. 
It does not matter whether it means thatched cottage 
or manor house, home is home, be it ever so plain, 
and no place on earth is like it. It is "the only spot 
on earth where the faults and failings of fallen 
humanity are hidden under the mantel of charity." 
"It is the father's kingdom, the children's paradise, 
the mother's world." It is "a little hollow scooped 
out of the windy hill of the world, where we can be 
shielded from its cares and annoyances." The "home 
is the blossom of which heaven is the fruit." A phrase 
often used is quite suggestive : "Every man's house 
is his castle ;" but as such the home should not be the 
place "where you are treated best and grumble most." 
Let the drawbridge, portcullis, bastion, and turret be 
used to shut out enmity, at the same time allowing 
kindness and good will free exit and entrance. 

It is not the silvery or golden chain that holds the 
l:ome together. It is the all endurable tie of mutual 



222 Gentleness in the Home. 

affection. Even palaces are a desert where the word 
of welcome and cheer is not heard. He that has had 
a home, or has one, cannot but feel the deep sadness 
of Childe Harold, when Byron puts into his verse of 
travels the following lines : 

"He entered his house — his home no more. 
For without hearts there is no home ; — and felt 
The solitude of passing his own door 
Without a welcome." 

Where no gentleness and affection are the most 
elegant mansion is at most as good as an inn. We 
naturally crave gentleness, but our experience teaches, 
that the world outside the home has none to lavish. 
Gentleness is like a genial summer in the midst of the 
winter storms of public life. In the home love's 
sweetest flowers should bloom. No matter how heavy 
the burdens have been, when we gather home at 
nightfall only cheer and light should accompany us. 
Thus home should be a school in wliich all branches 
of love is taught. Selfishness and self-gratification 
should be banished. Home should not be the place 
where we go to work off our ill temper. It is not a 
place where we are privileged to act as we 
please ; for we should be most gentle towards those 
we love best and we should love those best to whom 
we owe most. To whom do we owe more than to 
our nearest in the homes? — gentleness to all but gently 
affectionate to those in the home. 'Tt blesseth him 
that gives and him that takes." 



Family AJfcction. . 223 

"In sweet'ning the life of another, 
In reheving a brother's distress, 
The soul finds its highest advancement, 
And the noblest blessedness. 

''That life is alone worth the living 
That lives for another's gain ; 
That life that comes after such living 
Is the rainbow after the rain. 

The spirit of human kindness 
Is the angel the soul most needs, 
It sings its wonderful paean, 
While the heart does its noblest deeds." 

We must learn to be gentle to all. It is easy to 
be gentle to those of our family that are gentle, while 
we find it equally hard to be kind to others. Outside 
of the family circle there may be some excuse for this 
partiallity; but within there can be none. There are 
homes where afifection is held hack. Some have it as 
a principle to withhold the tenderness that may be in 
their nature. It is an awful thing not to show ten- 
derness to those that lavish it on us. They give it 
freely and generously and we take it selfishly and 
would even become bitter if they ceased to be gentle. 
Too often are we cold and repulsive to those to whom 
we owe most, while we lavish our affection on them 
that have not merited it. Your relatives and true 
benefactors yearn for an expression of that love and 
affection that you owe them, and without it they feel 



324 Reciprocate Affection 

sad. To show tenderness, when our loved ones have 
departed will do them no good, nor can it heal the 
deep wounds of your heart. How sad is it not to 
stand above a parent's tomb and cry from the depths 
of the heart : Could I but see you one minute to tell 
you that I love you ! But the cold sod gives no res- 
ponse to your lamentation, and the grieving heart 
finds no relief. Young friends, let not ardent affec- 
tions again be met with cold indifference, but let it 
show itself in a pure consecrated attachment, as that 
of a Ruth to a Naomi. It will make the hearts 
glad for 

'The lonely heart that knows not love's 
Soft power or friendship ties, 
Is like yon withering flower that bows 
Its gentle head touched to the quick. 
For that the genial sun hath hid its light, 
And, sighing, dies. 

If you are not willing to make some sacrifice in 
return and reciprocate, kindness in other hearts is 
certainly not going to glow continually. It must be 
mutual, if it shall continue. Show due kindness to 
your relatives and benefactors, or, even they, will 
become cold and indifferent. Do not believe that fire 
will continue to burn while you are continually pour- 
ing on water ; likewise do not expect others affec- 
tions towards you to remain as sincere when you are 
pouring on them the waters of cold neglect. Train 
your heart to add to their fire of affection a little of 



Reciprocate Affection. 225 

the oil of love and gentleness, and you shall soon see 
and feel a blaze of intimate friendship which no blast 
from hell can extinguish. 

"Love is strong as death ; 

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, 
A very flame of Jehovah, 
Many waters cannot quench love, 
Neither can floods drown it." 

(Songs 8:6-7.) 

The afifection of the family circle often seems all 
enduring and immortal ; yet, why not make its exis- 
tence less painful ? The most painful thing for a 
loving mother is an unkind son, and for a loving 
sister an unkind brother. Why not make their hearts 
glad by reciprocity? 

''A little word in kindness spoken, 

A motion or a tear, 
Has often healed the heart that's broken. 

And made a friend sincere. 

A word, a look, has crushed to earth. 

Full many a budding flower. 
Which, had a smile but owned its birth. 

Would bless life's darkest hour. 

Then deem it not an idlle thing, 

A pleasant word to speak ; 
The face you wear, the thoughts you bring, 

A heart may heal or break." 



326 • Circle of Affection. 

Show your affection while those to whom you 
owe it are still with you. It is too late when they are 
dead to make up for lost affections by scattering 
flowers and building monuments. Learn the caution 
so admirably stated by Margaret Sangster: 

"We have careful thoughts for the stranger, 

And smiles for the sometime guest, 

But oft for "our own" 

The bitter tone, 

Though we love "our own" the best." 

It is within this inner circle of affection that the 
young lady is called to move. She is supposed to 
fill it with works that cannot die. Let it be said of 
our American homes, what Robert Burns said of Scot- 
land's homes : 

"From scenes like these old Scotland's grandure 

springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad : 
Princes and lords, are but the breath of kings. 
An honest man's the noblest work of God." 

The chief person in the home is the mother. So 
closely is our thought of home linked with that of 
mother, that we instinctively ask: "What is home 
without a mother?" A mother may be happy, but 
her life is not easy ; her working hours are many, 
extending through the whole day from early at morn 
until late at night. Yet she has never made a strike 



Mother s Cares. 227 

for higher wages nor pleaded for fewer hours of 
toil. Her face bears the marks of care and her hands 
are made hard by incessant labor, yet 

"Such beautiful, beautiful hands ! 

They're neither white nor small : 

And you, I know, would scarcely think 

That they are fair at all. 

Fve looked on hands whose form and Tiue 

A sculptor's dream might be; 

Yet are those aged, wrinkled hands 

More beatiful to me. 

Such beautiful, beautiful hands ! 

They're growing feeble now. 

For time and pain have left their mark 

On hands, and heart, and brow. 

Alas ! alas ! the nearing time. 

And the sad, sad day to me, 

When 'neath the daises, out of sight, 

These hands will folded be." 

When one day's tasks are finished she knows that 
the next day brings as many, if not more duties. 
With children about her, she has her hands full to 
keep things in order. They tug her dress, climb her 
knee, bring their sorrows to her to find comfort, their 
quarrels to get justice, their broken toys for repair, 
and their thousand questions for answers. She must 
be pastor, chief of police, master mechanic, and profes- 
sor, — not to speak of governor in the kitchen, — in one 



228 1 raining Instilutc. 

person. No wonder that the mother has annoyances 
enough in the nursery, parlor and kitchen to fill her 
nerves with nettles and spikes. Yet, all she asks in 
return for all hardships is that she be successful in 
winning the love of those about her. To these man- 
ifold dutites the daughter can by her carelessness add 
large burdens and anxieties : but with filial attention 
she can make the burden easy, yes even pleasant. It 
should be the duty of every mother to teach her 
daughters how to make themselves usefull. There 
can be no sadder mistake than to consider a young 
lady too refined for the ordinary work of the house. 
Give the daughter a chance to serve her full appren- 
ticeship in every department of the home, from the 
kitchen to the drawing room and the parlor. When 
she then goes out to take charge of her own home. 
she shall be in a position to keep her dignity as mis- 
tress over the house. Too often must the domestics 
take charge of the whole household aflfair because 
the "lady of the house" — a very appropriate name for 
these misplaced mortals — does not know anything 
about these aflfairs. Ignorant where they ought to 
be -well informed these "ladies of the house" fail 
entirely in their life vocation. Paul gives the fol- 
lowing advise to mothers : "That aged women like- 
wise be reverent in demeanor, not slanderers nor en- 
slaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good : 
that they may train the young women to love their 
husbands, to love their children, to be sober minded, 
chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection 
to their own husbands, that the word of God be not 



Mother s Influence. 229 

blasphemed." (Tit. 2:3-5). ^^^ to these household 
duties a mother's feeling and interest for the eternal 
welfare of her children, and we see that her task is 
no mean one. Her work is that of a Moses leading 
the people through the wilderness, that of a Daniel 
interceding for Israel before the throne of God. 

"Often into folly straying, 
O, my mother! how Fve grieved her! 
Oft I've heard her for me praying, 
Till the gushing tears relieved her 
And she gently rose and smiled. 
Whispering, God will keep my child!" 

Napoleon said : "Let France have good mothers 
and we will have good sons." But only good sisters 
and obliging daughters can make good mothers. To 
be a good mother is after all the grandest thing in 
the world. Her kingdom is the noblest of all king- 
doms ; and should it be abandoned for other distinc- 
tions? When the trees went forth to find a king, 
they said unto the vine, come thou and reign over us. 
Then the vine said unto them, Should I leave my new 
vine, which cheereth God and man, and go to wave 
over the trees? (Jud. 9:12-13). Likewise the young 
lady ought to say, shall I abdicate the kingdom of 
the home, where I can serve God and make man glad 
to go and rule in public life or in some office? Women 
are the makers of nations. "The hand that rocks the 
cradle rules the world." George Washington com- 
manded the forces in the L^nited States, but Mary 



230 Mother s Taidcrn^ss. 

Washington commanded George. St. Augustine gave 
to the Christian Church gifts immeasurable; but 
Monica gave us Augustine. Crysostom's mother 
made his pen for him and trained his tongue to lisp 
the first words, thus giving him a foundation without 
which his subsequent fame as sacred orator could 
not have been achieved. 

It is with deep sadness that I recall the pleasant 
memories of a sainted mother. When on her death 
bed, she was asked if she desired to see me, her only 
absent child, she said : "He is busy. I must not 
bother him, and he knows perfectly well what my 
desires are." Mother, your dear words, expressive 
of thy last thought of me, shall never be forgotten ! 
I know thy will, and I shall try to do according to it. 
Without mother the world seems so empty, and our 
heart feels the sentiment expressed in the following 
lines : 

'Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, 
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you ! 
Many a summer the grass has grown green, 
Blossomed and faded, our faces between : 
Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain, 
Long I to-night for they presence again. 



Over my heart in the days that are flown. 
No love like a mother's love ever was shown 
No other worship abides and endures, 
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: 




MOTHER. 



M 67)10 rics of Mother. S31 

None like a mother can charm away pain 
From the sick soul, and the world weary brain." 



But she is here no more. It was an Autumnal 
day when I came home and found the house from 
which the dear soul had fled forever. It looked 
very natural ; the hands th?t always had been employed 
in kindness towards her children were now cold and 
lifeless; but still they were the same dear hands that 
had wiped so many tears from my hot cheek. The 
lifeless lips now sealed forever, were the same that 
had taught me the first principles of Christian living. 
Those eyes now closed in endless slumber always 
guided me, and have had many a sleepless night for 
my sake. Whatever else I may forget, I can never 
forget the words and look of mother. As I sat by 
the casket, I could not help but feel, that it is too 
bad that her beautiful life should have ended so soon, 
but God, Thy will be done ! It was a cloudless day 
when, with heavy hearts we carried her to her last 
resting place. The leaves were falling from the trees 
and the evening sun clad them in their sad attire as 
we laid mother to rest. But more calm and beautiful, 
though sad, was the setting sun of that aged pilgrim. 
For her no more tears, no more toil, no more sick- 
ness, and no more death. Dear Mother ! Beautiful 
mother ! Thy body shall crumble but thy spirit and 
memory live with us forever ! 

In the home there should be no place for unamic- 
able rivalry. Rivalry creates jealousy and fosters 



233 Teasi7ig a7id Jealousy. 

enmit}^, and often hurls the unfortunates into deadly 
conflict. 

"Our life is like a narrow raft, 
That floats upon the hungry sea, 
Whereon is but a little space ; 
And each man, eager for a place, 
Doth thrust his brother in the sea. 
And so the sea is salt with tears. 
And so our life is worn with fears.'' 

Sisters, don't snub your brothers ! It is the curse 
of many households that the sisters tease the brothers 
and the brothers, the sisters. Often it is only con- 
cerning the color of the hair or the physical features, 
— for which they are not responsible ; but often it is 
on account of affairs of the heart. Speaking sneer- 
ingly regarding them, is like pricking an open wound 
with a rusty pin. Older members of families, do 
not tease the younger ones! They are probably just 
at the age when such talk is hardly understood and 
much less appreciated. It may switch them on to 
the side track that will lead them to temporal and 
eternal ruin. Shut jealousy out by being affectionate 
in your treatment of those to whom affection is due. 
We do not feel surprised that Meriam, the sister of 
Moses, was jealous, and we sympathize with her when 
she became leprous in consequence of her jealousy. 
(Numb. 12). Was she not justified in protesting 
when her brother Moses married the black Ethiopian 
woman? Had she not sacrificed much for her junior 



Family Unity. 233 

brother, from the time she watched the little craft 
containing the infant which was lying at the mercy 
of the waters, and an easy prey for the beasts, among 
the bulrushes of the Nile? Yes, she had been self- 
sacrificing and as such has taught a noble lesson to 
all young ladies ; but neither that nor the outrage can 
justify her violent burst of jealousy. 

Such demonstrations serve only to separate still 
further the members of the same household. Let the 
sister do her work to keep the family united. Her 
gentle hand may accomplish more in that line than 
can the masculine arm of a brother. A united family 
can accomplish great things. In 1812, Mayer Anselm 
Rothschild was lying on his death bed, and around 
him were standing his sons, Anselm, Solomon, Nath- 
an, Charles, and James. The father made them 
promise that they always should be united on the 
question of money. Obedient to this injunction, they 
have become the greatest financial power in the world. 
Kingdoms rise and fall but this firm holds a scepter 
which rules the destiny of many nations. They have 
demonstrated what unity can accomplish. Be united, 
and shut out all things that tend to dissolution. 
Weave the golden threads of gentleness into the text- 
ure of the family and it will keep the hearts together 
in a unity of spirit in the bond of peace. Sisters and 
brothers, have less of the earthquake fashion, but 
more of the still small voice in your homes. Remem- 
ber that religion is love and forbearance and not only 
orthodoxy and dispute. 

Make home cheerful with the sunshine of love for 



S34 Make Home Attractive, 

your father and brothers. It is a sad observation that 
in this country 45 per cent of our young men are 
minus the blessings of a home. Hotel life affords at 
best an accomodation for the body only. It gives 
no rest for the mind. Hotels breed gossip and slander 
in quick incubator style. Macauley makes the fol- 
lowing statement about young men's life in London 
during the reign of Charles the Second : "Those who 
wish to find a gentleman, commonly asked not whether 
he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether 
he frequented the Grecian or Rainbow." Sisters you 
ought to make the home such that the brother will 
much prefer it to the hotel, the club room or secret 
order hall. Talmage says: "When we come to cal- 
culate the forces that decide the destiny of nations, 
it will be found that the mightiest and grandest in- 
fluence came from the home. Here the mother trams 
the child for heaven by starting the little feet on the 
path to the celestial city ; and the sisters by their 
gentleness refining the manners of the brothers, and 
the daughters in their kindness to the aged throwing 
wreathes of blessings on the road that leads father 
and mother down to the steeps of years." 

"Our homes should be a church with "holiness 
to the Lord" over the door ; but it ought never to be a 
prison where there is plenty of rule and order but 
little of love and no pleasure," says Spurgeon. Every 
bird loves its own nest. The owl thinks the oldest 
ruins the fairest under the moon, and the fox is of 
the opinion that his hole in the hill is remarkably 
cozy. We can all make our homes appear so to us 



Men Utifit as Husbands. 235 

by bringing more of the sunshine of love and gentle- 
ness into them. 

In many cases it seems that to establish a home 
is the sole purpose of life. And with the people of 
yore, we still often hear that single life is a curse. 
It is however, a far happier lot for a young lady to 
be alone than to be bound to a man whose soul is 
mortgaged to some vice that makes him unfit for 
home and noncondusive to happiness. How we do 
pity those women whose husbands spend every 
evening away from home except when they are too 
sick to go, and must remain inside to be nursed by 
a patient wife. Many women marry just such sots to 
avoid single life, never stopping to think that this 
will cause the feminine heart to pine away in a regular 
hell on earth. No bureau of statistics can tell us the 
number of women, who, after marriage, have to sup- 
port themselves and their husbands, while these great 
lazy, masculine louts stand around with hands in their 
pockets allowing their wife with her weak arms to 
fight the battle for bread. O, masculine beast ! whose 
life has been loose, how can you take under your 
care a spotless virgin reared in the sancticity of a 
respectable home? Will a buzzard dare to court a 
dove? These are just such men that will let their 
wife carry the heavy coal scuttle up stairs, and will 
work hard themselves only to get money for those 
pleasures that they can get outside of the home. 
Ladies, do you suppose such a man could make a 
home? Would it not be much unlike the place that 
you now call home? To live in such a place would 



236 Celibacy Better tJiaii Mis-Marriage. 

be worse for yon than to be incarcerated in the dnn- 
geons of the Spanish Inqnisition. In spite of their 
gloom these dreary dungeons gave Hberty to the 
spirit. But lives linked to such men would add to 
bodily pains a full quota of anguish from the depths 
of the soul. No man would buy a house with encum- 
brance of mortgages, and judgements against it un- 
cancelled. Yet there are so many women that are 
willing to marry men encumbered with liens and 
judgments and first mortgages and second and third 
mortgages of evil habits. Don't hope to reform them. 
"If now, under the restraint of your present acquaint- 
ance, he will not give up his evil habits, after he has 
won the prize, you cannot expect him to do so. In- 
stead of marrying a man to reform him, let him re- 
form first, and then give him time to see whether 
the reform is to be permanent. Let him understand 
that if he cannot do without his habits for two years, 
he must do without yon forever." Don't run any of 
such great risks just to get into married life. Rather 
enjoy the blessings of earth and heaven alone than 
to be cursed by an unhappy family life on earth and 
run the risk of forfeiting heaven in the deal. 

You can do a very useful work, if you remain 
alone. "Among the brightest queens in heaven will 
be those who take care of other people's children. 
Alas, for that household which has not within easy 
call an aunt !" Often do we hear disparaging remarks 
and unkind allusions with reference to celibates, while 
caricatures are made and ungallant things are said; 
but as far as observation eoes the m.aiden celibates 



Laify Celibacy. 237 

are quite equal in disposition to their married sisters. 
"When the angel of life comes to a neighbor's dwel- 
ling, these maiden celibates are there to rejoice in the 
starting of another immortal spirit ; when, the angel 
of death comes to a neighbor's house, they are there 
to robe the departed for burial." 

Young ladies, remember that you are in good 
company if you maintain your celibacy. Some of our 
noblest women never married. The great astronom- 
ical genious, Caroline Hershel, who nursed her illus- 
trious brother, died unmarried at the age of ninety- 
eight. So lived and died Florence Nightingale, the 
nurse of the Crimea; Hannah More, England's great 
Christian authoress, Dorothea Dix, the angel of 
mercy for the insane, and many others. Are not the 
lives of these women far happier than the lives of 
those that have married unfortunately? Leaving out 
from our consideration those women that are happily 
married, we shall make a comparison. With these 
maiden celibates, that shine as stars in the firmement 
of God, compare the great number of noble women 
that are pineing away under the stress of wretched 
family life. Would these unfortunate slaves not have 
been far happier had they not been linked to a wretch 
of a man? Again, are these maiden celibates not 
much nobler than the frivolous married coquetts of 
the modern drawing-room, who commit suicide by 
inactivity, and whose heaven is in the opera box, who 
take arsenic to improve the complexion, and whose 
appearance is a confused result of belladonna, 
bleached hair, antimonv, and mineral acids. I do not 



238 Gentlemen Celibacy. 

wish to discourage family relation, as that is the most 
sacred thing that can be aspired for ; but I do wish 
to rebuke strongly those who can make light of those 
persons who chose to live alone rather than to risk 
''any sort of alliance." 

As for the gentlemen celibates, I should say with 
Paul, that for many it would be a blessing to remain 
in that state. Their lives are happier and can be 
made more useful than that which they would lead 
if they were to marry. The cause of family troubles 
is not always with the man. Solomon finds that "it 
is better to dwell in the corner of the house-top than 
with a contentious woman in a wide house." (Prov. 
25:24). It is very possible that he had had some of 
the same experiences, which Socrates had with 
Xantippe, or as had Milton, Ferguson, and Wesley 
with their wives. 

If you want to know a young lady, to find out 
what she is good for, then don't look at her only as 
she appears in society, where she delights to show off 
her best qualities, and manages to cover up all her 
faults under a veil of hypocrisy. Often the women 
who shine best in society are strictly no good at home. 
There is so much counterfeit womanhood, that it is 
often hard even for the best of men to avoid being 
deceived. Such was Socrates when he married the 
historic Xantippe ; also John Wesley, who was united 
to one of the most scandalous women imaginable. 
Once Wesley was telling of the sins that he had been 
accused of, and said that he believed he had been 
accused of all sins in the calendar of evil except 



J! 'omen Unfit as Wives. 239 

drunkenness. At that moment his wife arose and 
arfirmed that he was a regular sot. Good for Wesley 
that he was cool-headed enough to say : "Oh, thank 
God, now the calendar is complete," or there would 
have been war. While James Ferguson, the philos- 
opher, was lecturing to his class in astronomy, his 
wife entered and willfully upset the apparatus. Turn- 
ing to the audience he said : "Ladies and Gentlemen : 
I have the misfortune of being married to this 
woman." After John Milton became blind he again 
married. When some one called his wife a rose, he 
said: "I am no judge of colors but it may be so, 
for I feel the thorns daily." 

No young lady given to flirtation nor extremely 
interested in theatres can amount to much at home. 
Over-expensiveness in attire is not consistant with the 
frugality necessary in our American homes. The 
story of Arnold, who tried to sell his country to fill 
his family's wardrobe has often been repeated. Many 
forgeries and frauds have been perpetrated simply to 
satisfy the demands of a wife or daughter. There 
are women that will and must spend hundreds for 
dress; but have nothing for charity. They will weep 
tears of sympathy for the suffering until a five dollar 
handkerchief is saturated, but can spare only one 
cent for their relief. 

It is desirable that a lady has education. With 
songs, music, and art she can make the home more 
cheery and bright. But even these desirable qualities 
are insignificant compared to the spiritual beauty. 
Let no one think that refinement of manners, or ex- 



240 AccompIisJiments. 

quisitness of taste, or superiority of education, can 
in any wise apologize for ill temper, for an oppress- 
ive spirit, for unkindness, for any kind of sin. Ac- 
complishments heaven-high cannot make good for 
vice hell-deep. Let a young lady seek an accomplish- 
ment that "increases though sickness pales the cheek, 
and poverty emptys the bread tray, and death opens 
the small grave, and the whole path of life be strewn 
with thorns." 

A young lady ought always to be presentable, 
although she may not always wear her best. None of 
us always do that. For then our best would not be 
good very long. We all have our up's and down's. 
Some times gay and sometimes despondent. If we 
did not change we should be tedious and monotonous 
to those around us. A young lady should always be 
neat. But how much neatness can we expect to be 
taught in the homes where mothers are slovenly and 
uncleanly? As the daughter is brought up so is she 
apt to continue. None is to be praised for cleanliness ; 
but the uncleanly cannot be reproved too strongly. 

As it is taken for granted that a young lady shall 
some day be at the head of a family, it is a prime 
necessity that she should know how. A woman that 
is highly accomplished but cannot make a loaf of 
bread to save herself is certainly not educated up to 
what she ought to be. If the young ladies knew more 
of dietetics before they "entered life," there would not 
be as many dyspeptic stomachs, weak nerves, and 
inactive livers. As Napoleon lost one of his greatest 
battles by an attack of indigestion so many men have 



Early Marriage. 241 

such a daily wrestle with the food swallowed that they 
have no strength left for the battle of life. Though 
a young lady may know how to play an instrument 
to perfection she is not well educated unless she can 
bake beans, boil potatoes, and broil beef-steak. 

Be rather slow in entering the marital state. It 
is that which shall decide for you whether you are to 
have a heaven here and a heaven forever or a hell 
here and probably a hell forever. You should not 
enter the relation with the idea that it is only a trial 
trip, thinking that you can disembark at the first 
landing. It will be impossible for you to break the 
yoke. The more you wish it broken the more unen- 
durable it will become. The minister might bring 
you before the alter and read the ceremonies back- 
ward ; you may take the ring off the finger and break 
it ; you may rend the veil ; you may tear out the leaf 
in the family Bible; but for all that you will fail to 
be unmarried.' 

Such an important step can not be wisely taken at 
too early an age. The mind is not now mature to 
decide the important question. In the State of New 
York, marriage is permitted at the age of twelve and 
fourteen. It is a wonder that sane people could pass 
a law which would permit insanity, by making the 
conditions for its grip on the offspring possible. One 
of our great theologians has said that the proper 
time for the boy is at the age of twenty-five and for 
the girl at twenty. M. Mishel Chevalier proves by 
statistics that there is in France an exceptional great 



242 Proper Age for Marriage. 

mortality in the class of persons of either sex, that 
have married under the age of 20. 

Dr. Lyman B. Sorry says that "A quarter of a 
century at least is required for preparation to perform 
life's duties properly.'' Before that age the human 
mind is not wise enough or strong enough to be complete 
master of the restless masculine nature. Shakespeare 
puts the following words into the speech of lago : 
"If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason 
to poise another of sensuality, the blood and the base- 
ness of our natures would conduct us to most preposter- 
ous conclusions ; but we have reason to cool our 
raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts." 
With the young, this reason has not won complete 
control. Young men should know that it is rude to 
cultivate intimacies that must be discontinued probably 
to the grief and ruin of the lady. Another objection 
to this is the fact that so much time, — valuable time, 
is lost in kidlike enjoyment of all that foolish fancy 
dictates. 

It is hard now-a days for a young man of twenty- 
five to support himself; how much worse would it be 
to support a family. Some years ago a firm in Lon- 
don decided that if any of their clerks married on a 
salary less than 150 lbs. (about $750.00) they should 
be discharged. It is wise to see your way clear in 
providing a home before you take some one away 
from home to make provisions for. Young men, you 
have no right to take a young lady from her comfort- 
able home unless you have at least some comforts to 
offer her in return. 



C/iristianify and Mam'ai^e. . 243 

Don't marry any one else than a Christian, if you 
are worthy of one. A non-Christian would drag you 
down and trample your Christianity under his feet, 
and may even lead you to renounce it. Paul says : 
"Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers : for what 
fellow^ship have righteousness and iniquity? or what 
communion hath light with darkness? and what con- 
cord hath Christ with Belial ? or what portion hath 
a believer with an unbeliever? and what agreement 
has a temple of God with idols?" (II Cor. 6:14-16). 
In I Cor. 7 Paul speaks to those families in which one 
of the parents have accepted Christianity while the 
other still remains an unbeliever. These he exhorts 
by saying, "For how knowest thou, O wife, whether 
thou shalt save the husband? or how knowest thou, 
O husband, whether thou shalt save the wife? (v. 
16). When Paul gives this advice he even takes the 
precaution to add, "But to the rest say I, not the 
Lord," so we understand full well that Paul does not 
advise a believer to marry an unbeliever. Faith in 
the Lord is a blessing wdierever it is found. A fam- 
ily without it is like a ship without a rudder. A 
family in which one of the seniors possesses it and the 
other does not, is like a bird with only one wing. O 
christian, do not think that you can uphold the home 
institution when there is a dead weight at your side ! 
You want one that is in full sympathy with you ; one 
that can sit at your side when you are ill, and talk to 
you of treasures in heaven when earthly treasures can 
charm thee no more ; one that by faith and hope can 



244 Other Requisites for Marriage. 

shed some light even into the dark vale of the long 
shadows of death. 

This decision is an important one. It is the start- 
ing point in life. If the train be only slightly side- 
tracked, it will not arrive at its destination on sched- 
uled time, but may be hurled into complete ruin. The 
most unpleasant divorce cases and a greater part of 
domestic troubles come from thoughtless alliances. 
Therefore, before you pledge yourself, seek the advice 
of God and your parents. Then you can go out of the 
harbor at noon with all flags flying and need have no 
thought of running a blockade at night. Don't wait to 
seek advice till you are fascinated and the equilibrium 
of your soul is destroyed by a magnetic and exquisite 
presence, for then you will answer your own prayers 
and you will mistake your own infatuation for the 
voice of God. 

This is probably anticipating. Most of you to 
whom I speak are still at home with your parents, 
and, probably do not expect to leave them so very 
soon. The most golden time of your lives are the 
present moments. Yours is an excellent opportunity 
to make a splendid preparation for the days to come. 
Your institution is in most cases complete in every 
department. There are father and mother, brothers 
and sisters, that all have something to teach you, and 
from all of whom you ought to be willing to learn. 
There are the laboratories of the kitchen, the dining 
room, the nursery etc., that give you ample opportunity 
to perform your experiments. In this Academy where 
the greatest of all sciences, the science of life — and 



Purpose of Life. 245 

the most excellent of all arts — the art of living — is 
taught, yon have the most excellent opportunity to 
learn love and patience in all its branches. If rightly 
disciplined and rightly disposed you ought to graduate 
with a perfectly gentle character and the world must 
say of you when your life is ended: "She did her 
best." 

"If I can live 

To make some pale face brighter, and to give 
A second luster to som^ tear-dimmed eye. 

Or e'en impart 
One throb of comfort to an aching heart, 
Or cheer some way-worn soul in passing by. 

If I can lend 
A strong hand to the fallen, or defend 
The right against a single envious stain, 

My life, though bare, 
Perhaps of much that seemeth dear and fair 
To us of earth, will not have been in vain. 

The purest joy — 
Most near to heaven — far from earth's alloy. 
Is bidding cloud to give way to sun and shine ; 

And 'twill be well 
If on that day of days the angels tell 
Of me : ''She did her best for one of Thine." 

If that could be said of all, what difference would 
there not be in this world : 



246 Purpose of Life. 

"If we dealt less in stocks and lands 

And more in bonds and deeds fraternal, 
If love's work had more willing hands 

To link the world with the supernal ; 
If men stored up love's oil and wine 

And on bruised human hearts would pour it, 
If "yours" and "mine" 
Would once combine. 
The world would be the better for it. 

If more would act the pl^y of life, 
And fewer spoil it in rehearsal ; 
If Bigotry would sheath its knife, 

Till God became more universal. 
If Custom, gray with ages grown, 
Had fewer blind men to adore it; 
If talent shone 
In truth alone. 
The world would be the better for it." 




THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG LADY. 




HE human being is a bundle of latent 
possibilities that should be developed into 
active resources. This development is 
attained through the process of education. 
Education is not cramming into the mind 
isolated facts from history, science, and 
art, but it is an e-diico, a leading out, or 
bringing out of the powers that are 
within the human mind. It is not in- 
troducing foreign factors into the human 
being; but it is developing the powers that are there. 
Instruction too often becomes the storeing of the mem- 
ory, when education should be the cultivation of the 
mind. Therefore studies, or knowledge, is not the 
thing to be sought ; but the thing to be aimed at is 
that power of mind which knowledge gives. Studies 
are only a means to an end. Bacon says : *'To spend 
too much time in studies is sloth ; to use them too 
much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment 
wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar ; they 

perfect nature, and are perfected by experience 

Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, 
and wise men use them." 

It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained 

(847) 



248 Scope a?td Value of Education. 

Up with inferior minds, or inferior companions^ how- 
ever high they may rank. The foal of the race neither 
finds out his speed, nor calls out his powers, if pastured 
out with the common herd that is destined for the 
collar and the yoke. Therein lies the call for instruc- 
tion, which should be a wise guidance in learning 
how to use the natural faculties in such a way that 
their use is condusive to the happiness and welfare 
of the individual. Webster says: "Knowledge does 
not comprise all which is contained in the large term 
of education. The feelings are to be disciplined, the 
passions are to be restrained ; true and worthy motives 
are to be inspired ; a profound religious feeling is to 
be instilled, and pure morality inculcated under all 
circumstances. All this is comprised in education." 
We can hardly overestimate the value of education. 
When Aristotle was asked in what the educated dif- 
fered from the uneducated, he said, *'As the living 
dififer from the dead." This saying, though far 
fetched, is nevertheless quite suggestive. "An educated 
man stands, as it were, in the midst of a boundless 
arsenal and magazine, filled with all the weapons and 
engines which man's skill has been able to devise, and 
he works accordingly, with a strength borrowed from 
all past ages. How different is the condition of the 
uneducated ! He stands, as it were, outside the store- 
house, and feels that its gates must be stormed, or 
they will remain forever shut against him. His means 
are the commonest and rudest. A dwarf behind the 
steam engine may dredge a harbor ; but no dwarf can 
do so with a shovel and a pickaxe." 



Nature and Purpose of Edueation. 249 

But education is not only beneficial economically. 
Far superior to this is the result that a well directed 
education brings to the moral and social life of an 
individual and a people. It is indeed true that many 
of the greatest frauds have been perpetrated by men 
of education ; but we cannot afford to put away a good 
thing because there are some that misuse it. The in- 
struction given should be such that it may strive to 
obviate such results. The Persian princess, even 
amid the wantonness of Asiatic magnificence, merit 
praise for the care with which they educated their 
children. At the age of 14 they were put under the 
care of four preceptors that had to be eminently dis- 
tinguished by their wisdom and ability. The first 
opened to them the doctrines of the Magi, which were 
to teach them their religious obligations ; the second 
impressed them, with veneration for truth ; the third 
exercised them in the habits of fortitude and mag- 
nanimity ; and the fourth inculcated the most difficult 
of all lessons, which was the perfect command and 
government of their passions. 

Education has for its purpose the uplifting of the 
whole human being. In the corner stone of the 
"Cooper Union" was laid a scroll which bore the fol- 
lowing words of Peter Cooper, the founder of the 
institute: ''The great object that I desire to accomp- 
lish by the erection of this institution, is to open the 
avenues of scientific knowledge to the youth of our 
city and country, and so unfold the volume of nature, 
that the young may see the beauties of creation, enjoy 
its blessings, and learn to love the Author from whom 



350 Purpose ; D eve lope the Whole Person. 

cometh every good and perfect gift." This is the 
object of all education as Bacon says : Our studies 
should not be "a couch on which to rest ; nor a cloister 
in which to promenade alone ; nor as a tower from 
which to look down on others ; nor as a fortress 
whence we may resist them ; nor as a workshop for 
gain and merchandise ; but as a rich armory and treas- 
ury for the glory of the Creator and the ennoblement 
of Hfe." 

That education may be such it is necessary that 
all sides of the nature be developed ; the physical, 
moral, and spiritual as well as the intellectual. Each 
must be developed, and yet, each must yield some- 
thing to satisfy the claims of the others. Cultivate 
the physical powers exclusively, and you have an 
athlete or a savage ; the moral only, and you have an 
enthusiast or a crank ; the spiritual only, and you have 
a fanatic ; the intellectual only, and you have a 
diseased oddity. It is only by wisely training the 
four together that the complete man can be formed. 

In our present day when the curriculae are so 
numerous, it is impossible that any single person 
should acquire proficiency in all. Let each choose that 
which shall train him best for his future life work. 
However, before entering upon the professional 
course, it is always well to have a general education, 
as there is no pleasure comparable to the standing 
upon the vantage ground of truth. When this foun- 
dation has been laid, the person should enter upon 
his professional course. It will be absurd for the 
candidate to the ministry to spend much time in the 



JfViy lVo/ne7i Should be Educated, 251 

Study of horticulture ; for the candidate in juris- 
prudence to study mechanical engineering; and for 
the candidate for the medical profession to study 
chiefly the classics. The studies pursued should be 
in line with the work for which the person is being 
equipped. 

With those general remarks we are in a position 
to take up the question that we have for discussion. 
In a former address I stated that women occupy the 
most important position in the world. They are the 
makers of the family, and on it are all our institutions 
dependent. If the family is wdiat it should be, the 
state, community, and church will be so. But if 
familiy life deteriorates the other institutions will 
suffer accordingly. A nation is what its homes are. 
Man has the pleasant delusion of calling himself the 
head of the family. .Nominally he is so, and should 
fill his position with honor. But the hand, head, and 
heart that rules the family is that of the mother, wife, 
or sister. It is the hand that rocks the cradle that 
rules the world, and back of many a king, ruler, and 
statesman we find the powerful hand of a mother. 

The mother's influence over her children is simply 
unlimited. This being so, it is important that the 
mothers themselves be well instructed. Paul says to 
Titus, that the aged women should "train the young 
women to love their husbands, to love their children, 
to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, and 
kind." (2:4-5). Indeed, the hand that holds such 
treftiendous powers should be a wise hand ; the heart, 
that by its warmth and affection instills the first prin- 



252 Education of the Lady. 

ciples into the child, should be a pure heart, and the 
mind, that guides by example and precept, should be 
a well instructed mind. 

The more noble and excellent the soul is, the 
greater and more savory are its perceptions. The 
more perfect the nature, the more weak, the more 
wrong, the more absurd, may be something in the 
character. To explain the paradox : if a mind is 
delicate and susceptible, false impressions will have a 
bad effect in proportion to that susceptibility, and 
consequently produce an evil, which a stupid and 
insensible nature might have avoided. The lady pos- 
sesses the qualities peculiar to her sex in a more 
superlative degree than does the man those that are 
peculiar to his sex. It is therefore very important 
that the young lady be educated that those prominent 
qualities do not abnormally develope, thus producing 
a mental prodigy. 

During the reign of Charles II, ladies highly born, 
highly bred and naturally quick-witted, were unable 
to write a line in their mother-tongue without sole- 
cisms and faults of spelling such as a charity girl 
would now be ashamed to commit. The explanation 
may easily be found. Extravagant licentiousness, the 
natural effect of extravagant austerity, was now the 
mode ; and licentiousness had produced its ordinary 
effect, the moral and intellectual degradation of 
women. To their personal beauty it was the fashion 
to pay rude and impudent homage. But the admir- 
ation and the desire which they inspired were seldom 
mingled with respect, with affection, or with any 



.iugiiste Comte s Opiiiion. 253 

chivalrous sentiment. The quahties which fit them 
to be companions, advisers, and confidential friends, 
rather repelled than attracted the libertines. In the 
court a maid of honor who dressed in such a manner 
as to do full justice to a white bosom, who ogled 
significantly, who danced voluptuously, who excelled 
in pert repartee, who was not ashamed to romp with 
the lords and captains of the guards, to sing shy 
verses, with shy expression, or to put on a page's 
dress for a frolic, was more likely to be honored with 
royal attentions, more likely to win a rich and noble 
husband than a Jane Grey or a Lucy Hutchinson. 
The standard of family attainments was low, and it 
was then more dangerous to be above that standard 
than beneath it. 

How glad we are to know that society forces no 
such education on the ladies now-a-days ! The stand- 
ard is just the reverse. Now is demanded from the 
lady a nobility and purity that are unsullied. 

Auguste Comte says that women are to be 'care- 
fully excluded from public action, but they are to do 
many more important things than' things political. 
To fit them for their functions, they are to be raised 
above material cares, and they are to be thoroughly 
educated'.... "Superior in power of affection, more 
able to keep both the intellectual and the active powers 
in continual subordination to feeling, women are 
formed as the natural intermediaries between human- 
ity and man. The Great Being confides specially to 
them its moral Providence, maintaining through them 
the direct and constant cultivation of universal affec- 



254 Woman s Character. 

tion, in the midst of all the distractions of thought 
or action, which are forever withdrawing men from 

its influence Beside the uniform influence of 

every woman on every man, to attach him to humanity, 
such is the importance and the difficulty of this min- 
istry that each of us should be placed under the special 
guidance of one of these angels, to answer for him, 
as it were, to the Great Being. This moral guardian- 
ship may assume three types, — the mother, the wife, 

and the daughter Together they form the three 

simple modes of solidarity, or unity with contempo- 
raries, — obediance, union, and protection, — as well as 
the three degrees of continuity between ages, by 
uniting us with the past, the present and the future. 
In accordance with my theory of the brain, each cor- 
responds with one of our three altruistic instincts, — 
veneration, attachment, and benevolence." 

The young lady must be taught to become master 
of herself. Pope says that the lady should be so 
educated that 

"Spleen, vapors, or small pox above them all, 
Be mistress of herself tho' China fall." 

Indeed, ladies are not 

"Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear. 

And best distinguished by black, brown or fair." 

They are most often the stamp while the man is the 
wax. It is true that every man bears the stamp of a 
woman, be it a mother, sister, or friend. She rules 
the man as did Eve rule our father Adam. Though 



Time for Education. 255 

a lady find herself proficient in the use of all the 
tongues that Babel cleft, yet if she has not power to 
control herself, she has not finished the first grade 
in her course of education. She has not learnt to rule 
herself, how can she rule others? The lady whose 
ill-temper breaks the safety-valve of common sense 
and starts the tongue spinning ou.t hell-hot hatred 
and home made slander or whose very nature is an 
unrestrained jealousy, is but little better than a 
cannibal. 

In youth is the time for a young lady to train 
herself. Shakespeare says: 

"Now 'tis the spring and weed are shallow rooted; 
Sufifer them now, and they'll o'er grow the garden, 
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry." 

There are in the nature of the young lady, and even 
more so in that of the young men, many bad habits 
to be overcome and evil inclinations to be corrected 
before it can be said that they are self possessed. 

Well may we here quote the words of Solomon: 

"Train up a child in the way he should go. 
And even when he is old he will not depart from it." 

(Prov. 22:6). 

Young ladies should not strive for an education 
to equip them for political prominence. You may 
object to my mentioning this, as you think that I 
am drifting into politics. Be that as it may ; I know 
however, that I have not drifted outside the ground 
that Scripture covers. We have heard prominent 



256 Not Educate for Politics or Business, 

women speakers with short curls, short dresses but 
with very long tongues, everlastingly at war with God 
because they were created women, and at war with 
men because they do not give the women the privilege 
that Holy Writ has explicitly denied them. These 
feminine aspirants for political supremacy say, that 
they are conducting their "war of liberation" for the 
salvation of the home and the family. Now, men are 
kept busy to supply the necessary means for the sup- 
port of the family, leaving the wife at home to take 
care of its interests. Pray, if the women should 
become busy in conducting our political affairs, who 
shall then stay at home and take care of the house and 
children? I am affraid that nothing more disastrous 
could befall our times than to let women abandon their 
kingdom in the home, to rule in politics. 

A young lady should not strive for a business 
education. It is true, that this is an easy way for the 
lady to earn a livelihood ; but in assuming a business 
position she takes the place that should be occupied 
by a brother or a father. We cannot be blind to the 
fact, that women are fast gaining ground in acquiring 
control of different lines of work. The result of this 
is an increased difficulty for a man to get a position, 
and a subsequent decrease in salary. Is it not a char- 
acteristic fact that manual labor demands propor- 
tionately higher wages than ordinary office work and 
clerking? For no other reason is this so than that the 
cheap work of the lady has not yet been brought into 
this field of man's activity, while there is an over-pro- 
duction of candidates for in-door work. But when 



i\ot Ed lie a te fo r Fash ion . 357 

the men, that have been crowded out from other work- 
by the women, turn to these handicrafts, the conse- 
quences of the business woman's appearance on the 
stage will be felt even among the artisan. For econ- 
omic reasons we protest against Chinese labor, why 
should we not protest against the increasing market- 
ing of cheap woman and child labor. Ladies should 
for psychologic reasons be opposed to such work. All 
such work tends to stagnate the mind, as it gives no 
opportunity for mental improvement : it is too mechan- 
ical for noble-souled women. 

There are other young ladies that care not for 
business opportunities. They are too refined for that. 
All that these aspire to is learning how to be fashion- 
able. Carefully they study the Journals of fashion 
and the modes of artificial beautification. This sort 
of education can certainly not produce any happiness. 
Compared to these, the business lady is an angel. 
This class of w^omen, that strive to educate themselves 
in fashion, to appear in the ball-room and the theatre, 
have really no character to lose. "They may be dressed 
in the height of fashion, may be cologned, and poma- 
tumed and padded, and diamond-ringed until they 
bewitch the eye and intoxicate the olfactories, but 
they are double-distilled extracts of villany, moral dirt 
and blasphemy." 

There is no true gentleman that 'admires a young 
lady who is a butterfly of the sunshine, a giggling 
nonentity, a painted doll, an ornamented peacock, a 
gossipping visitor, or a mixture of artificialities that 



258 Educate for the Home. 

leave you in doubt as to where the humbug ends and 
the woman begins.' 

The young lady should not strive for a political 
or business education. She should not be willing to 
abdicate her kingdom over the heart and home to 
rule in other spheres. She was not destined by the 
Creator to be the manipulator of levers in the machine- 
room of the work-shop, or the compiler of life-less 
figures in the counting-room. She was intended and 
equipped to be the instructor of the heart and mind. 
Indeed, her work is not an easy task ! She has the 
most important and arduous work before her. A 
mother must conduct at the same time a university, 
a clothing establishment, a restaurant, a laundry, a 
library, and be chief health office-r, police and pres- 
ident of the realm. She has a thousand things to do 
and must be able to do them well. Do we not judge 
the standard of a person's vocation by the material 
on which he operates, and from the results of his 
endeavors? That being the basis of classification, 
women certainly have the most noble vocation, if she 
abides by the place the Creator gave her. The mater- 
ial on which she operates is the immortal soul, and 
the resultants are the characters of the family and the 
home. 

Among all that I have read, I can find no better 
words to express briefly, what is to be said on this 
subject, than those of Lemuel to her son, as recorded 
in Proverbs 31 chapter: 

"A worthy woman who can find ? 

For her price is far above rubies. 



LcDiiier s Idea of Woman. 259 

The heart of her husband trusteth in her, 

And he shall have no lack of gain. 

She doth him good and not evil 

All the days of her life. 

She seeketh wool and flax, 

And worketh willingly with her hands. 

She is like the merchant-ships ; 

She bringeth her bread from afar. 

She riseth also while it is yet night, 

And giveth food to her household, 

And their task to her maidens. 

She considereth a field, and buyeth it; 

With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. 

She girdeth her loins with strength, 

And maketh strong her arms. 

She perceiveth that her merchandise is profitable ;■ 

Her lamp goeth not out by night. 

She layeth her hands to the distafT, 

And her hands hold the spindle. 

She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; 

Yea, she reached forth her hands to the needy. 

She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; 

For all her household are clothed with scarlet. 

She maketh for herself carpets of tapestry ; 

Her clothing is fine linen and purple. 

Her husband is known in the gates. 

When he sitteth among the elders of the land. 

She maketh linen garments and selleth them, 

And delivereth girdles unto the merchant. 

Strength and dignity are her clothing; 

And she laugheth at the time to come. 



360 Educate for the Home. 

She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; 
And the law of kindness is on her tongue. 
She looketh well to the ways of her household, 
And eateth not the bread of idleness. 
Her children rise up and call her blessed ; 
Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying: 
Many daughters have done worthily, 
But thou excellcst them all. 
Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain ; 
But a woman that feareth Jehovah, she shall be 
praised." 

(Prov. 31 : 10:30) 

A young lady should prepare herself to meet the 
requirements of her life-work. If it be absurd for the 
candidate to the ministry to spend much time in the 
study of horticulture; for the candidate in jurispru- 
dence to study mechanical engineering ; and for the 
candidate for the medical profession to study exclu- 
sively the classics ; it is even more absurd for the 
young lady, that wants to be properly prepared for 
life, to equip herself for the workshop or the counting- 
room. If she is to make a good home she must be 
taught how. This is not such an easy thing, that can 
be picked up in a moment, but is very difficult, re- 
quiring much theory and still more practice. Would 
it not be far better for our future homes if more of 
our young ladies were willing to serve in the kitchen 
rather than in the office and back of the counter? 
Indeed, we can not be blind to the fact that present 
social conditions are such that many of our young 



Ij7iPortance of General Education, 261 

ladies must serve out of their spheres. We can find 
no fault with those that are forced by circumstances 
to do so. For them it is honorable ; but not so for the 
young lady that will leave her mother to get a domestic 
that the daughter may spend her time in other pur- 
suits. Many, in fact most, of those that have been 
forced out by circumstances into other w^ork, can also 
discharge the duties of the home, as they are capable 
of conforming to circumstances, while those that 
despise the home-work can never afterwards per- 
form it. 

What should a young lady know? This is a 
very broad question that would require a still broader 
answer. It might well be included in the word : 
everything. As this is impossible we must be content 
to plead for a general education such as that which 
is offered in a college course, plus that which is offered 
in the domestic department of an ordinary household. 
Abilities in the arts of music and drawing are certainly 
very desirable accomplishments that can add much of 
excellence to the circle in which she moves. The lady 
that is to deal with the heart and the mind has more 
need for a general education than the man that deals 
with the materialworld. He may specialize with less 
general knowledge than the young lady. The pro 
fession that should call for the best general education 
is that of the ministry, as he has to deal with the body, 
mind, and soul of his flock. Likewise a mother ought 
to be in a position to be able to deal wisely with the 
immortal souls that are in her flock. Natural dis- 



263 Physical ajtd Economic Trai^ii^ig, 

position goes far ; but how much more could she not 
do, if to that were added the power of knowledge. 

The physical development of a young lady is of 
the highest importance. The pernicious modes of 
fashion that are so common should be carefully 
avoided, as they are destructive both to health and 
happiness. She should remember that "bodily exer- 
cise is profitable" (I Tim. 4:8) as it helps much in 
maintaining a sound body. And a sound body is 
absolutely indispensable for a sound mind. Calisthen- 
ics and Delsarte are very good disciplines. She should 
not be a tender and delicate hot-house plant, but a hardy 
and fresh perennial. A beautiful soul loses much of 
its beauty if it has to shine through the medium of 
a frail body ; while a healthy, vigorous physicjue adds 
grandure to spiritual beauty. A w^ill to do good is 
often restrained by a weak system which has been 
acquired through a neglect of bodily exercise. 

If it be necessary that a young man be taught how 
to make use of 'time and money, it is not of less im- 
portance that the young lady should know this very 
desirable art. Many are the homes that have been 
ruined by the extravagance and the indolence of a 
wife or a daughter. In a former address I referred 
to Arnold, the traitor, who tried to sell his country 
into the hands of the enemy that he might get money 
to supply the wardrobes of his wife and daughters. 
I am firmly convinced that the real cause of many of 
the frauds committed is to be found just in that ex- 
travagance and indolence of the women folks which 
force the men to wrong means of re-imbursement. 



DoDiestic Trainmg. 263 

In the place of living idly and voluptuously women 
should be industrious and frugal to the extent of 
making the earnings and expenses meet. In many 
homes we find a frugal, hard-working mother; but 
the daughter considers all house-work beneath her 
dignity. For these poor mothers the continual strain 
and stress will at last become too hard, and she will 
be prematurely hurried into the grave. On the tomb 
of many mothers should be written : "Here lies a 
mother that was killed by too much mending, sewing, 
baking, scrubbing, and scouring, which she had to 
do because a daughter would not lend a helping hand. 
The weapon that slew her was a broom, a sewing- 
machine or a ladel." Young ladies should know that 
it is a part of economy to save their mothers from 
every step possible, and only good daughters will make 
good women. 

A young lady should know how to engineer a 
kitchen. If she can be charmingly entertaining, play 
the piano to perfection, or conduct business affairs 
with skill, but can not prepare a decent meal, or dust 
a room, she is entirely unfit for her calling. It may 
sound harsh, — so does much truth, — to say that many 
homes are started with just such amateurs in culinary 
arts, that the first thing they do i-s to make the whole 
family into a group of dyspeptics by their poor cook- 
ing. As Napoleon lost one of his battles on account 
of an attack of indigestion, so many men lose battles 
continually because of the poorly prepared food that 
causes physical trouble and mental disorder. The 
thing to be aimed for is not a table with great varieties 



264 Cleanli7tess an Essentia/ Virtue. 

but one of excellent quality. In this connection, allow 
me to make another observation. It should be the 
desire of every young lady to appear neat in the 
home just as well as in society. The most disgustmg 
thing in the world is a woman who never combs her 
hair before she is to go out, or who looks like a 
fright till some body calls. It is equally disgusting 
to see a home where cleanliness is not insisted upon, 
both as to person and surroundings. When the dust 
is allowed to accumulate to such an extent that a 
person may write in it, you feel that the best cooking 
can not make up for it, and you ask with Job: "Who 
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" (14:4) 
The great amount of dirt tolerated all around is 
enough to offset any other virtue that may be dis- 
covered. It is true that a person deserves no credit 
for being cleanly ; but we can not find terms strong 
enough to denounce the absence of this virtue. I have 
been in homes where everything showed that the 
occupants were poor. But, wherever I have found 
that things were clean I have felt perfectly at ease. 
I have been in homes where plenty dwelt, but have 
felt very much out of place because of the dust that 
has been accumulated through ages, and have wonder- 
ed if the inmates did not know the excellent quality 
of water, and the virtue of the scrubbing brush and 
the dusting rag. As purity is a most desirable moral 
virtue, so cleanliness is a most desirable physical 
virtue. 

Being guided herself the young lady should know 
how to wisely guide others. She should be taught 



Broad Education Advanta^^eous. S65 

in the highest science : the knowledge of tlie soul. Thq 
Persians were very careful in the choice of the per- 
sons to whom they committed the instruction of their 
children. For this work they chose the wnsest and the 
best that could be found. This w^ork is now not laid 
in the hands of a teacher, but is committed to the 
mother. To execute this task, which is the most 
important that she has, she must be a pedagogue in 
the true sense. It is true that love is a w^ise guide in 
this work ; but this could be made more effective when 
it is combined with intellectual power and spiritual 
wisdom. My own dear mother did not possess any 
elaborate education, but she knew the out's and in's 
of the heart. That was the secret of her success in 
bringing up four boys and one girl. Her advantages 
were not what yours are now. Had she had them, I 
should have learnt many things from her which I had 
to wait for until I came to college. Our "university" 
at home was neither scientific nor classical, but Christ- 
ian and practical. I should be a fool if I did not own 
that it might have been much to the better for us if 
both the scientific end the classical had been combined 
with the other two qualities. 

However important these lines of education may 
be, we have yet to mention the one that is most im- 
portant. When the schedule of study for Madame 
Campan's female school w^as presented to Napoleon, 
he found as one regulation, "The young ladies shall 
attend prayers tzvice a week." He immediately erased 
the words "twice a week" and inserted "every day." 
There are some young ladies that make light of re- 



266 Christian Education. 

ligion and Christianity. When we consider what 
Christianity has done for women in raising her up 
from her position, which was worse than to be slave 
to men, to the position that she now enjoys, we feel 
that such a woman is an unthankful beast. A lady 
that can sit and listen to the reasonings of the infidel 
without feeling, indignant at the untruthfulness and 
injustice, should be brought back into heathendom 
and see what the women were before they were rescued 
by the power of the Christian religion. A woman 
that can enjoy the ridiculing of Christianity, is an 
awful creature that you better not come near. Tal- 
mage says that "She needs to be soaked for three 
weeks in carbolic acid, and fumigated for a whole 
year, before she is fit for decent society." 

I can not press too strongly the claims for a Christ- 
ian education. You may know other things, but they 
all perish. If you know the Lord you possess a know- 
ledge which is yours forever. This knowledge teaches 
you how to do your duties always. The Bible strikes 
the keynote when it says: "Love worketh no ill to 
his neighbor ; love therefore is the fulfilment of the 
law" (Rom. 13: 10), and "Love is the bond of per- 
fectness" (Col. 3: 14). We can say with Paul: "If 
I speak with the tongues' of men and of angels, but 
have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a 
clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, 
and know all mysteries and all knowledge ; and if I 
have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have 
not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods 
to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned,but 



Love, the Keynote. 267 

have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth 
long, and is kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not 
Itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh nof its own, is not provoked, taketh not 
account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but 
rejoiceth with the truth ; beareth all things, believeth 
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 
Love never faileth : but whether there be prophecies, 
they shall be done away ; whether there be tongues, 
they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall 
be done away." (I Cor. 13:1 — 8). This secret of life 
is learnt only from Christ, whose love should con- 
train every young lady, and young man, as well. 

Without the knowledge that a Christian experience 
gives, no person is educated as he ought to be. 
Physical and mental education is very good, but a 
religious education, a practical Christian knewledge 
gained by experience, is far more to be sought for 
than either of the other. This is the true wisdom, 
indeed, that we all should strive for. 

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom. 
And the man that getteth understanding 
For the gaining of it is better than the gaining of 

silver, 
And the profit thereof than fine gold. 
She is more precious than rubies : 
And none of the things thou canst desire are to be 

compared unto her. 
Length of days is in her right hand ; 
In her left hand are riches and honor. 



268 Dr. Holmaji on the Bible. 

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, 
And all her paths are peace." 

(Prov. 3: 13—17-) 

Allow me to close this series of addresses with the 
words of Dr. Holman : 

"Young man, young woman, cling to your mother's 
Bible ! Civilization is founded on it, and civilization 
has a sure foundation. The old Bible is sacred with 
many a precious memory. Fathers have put it into 
the hands of their boys as they have sent them out 
into the storms of life, and it has led them through 
without shipwreck. Mothers have put it into the 
hands of their daughters, and it has taught them how 
to live queenly lives and die in holy peace. Men 
have read its pages when they were trembling on the 
brink of awful temptation, and it has girded their 
loins to heroic resistance, till they have preferred to 
die rather than to do wrong. Soldiers have put it 
into their knapsacks and gone out to battlefields and 
charged up hills slippery with blood, with larger 
courage because of their Bible. And men in hospitals, 
groaning with pain, their life-blood dripping from 
their ghastly wounds, have held their mother's Bible 
in their fainting grasp and kissed it with lips that 
were pallid with death, and gone out into the 
darkness with a smile because their mother's 
Bible was near. O, the Bible ! the Bible \ I want it 
in my hands as I face life's hot temptations ; I want 
it in my heart as I fare life's awful sorrows ; I want 
it in my life as I gird my loins for strenuous respons- 



Dr. Holjiian on the Bible. 269 

ibilities ; 1 want it under my pillow when my breath 
comes in gasps, and the death-dew is damp on my, 
forehead ; and I want you to put it in my coffin and 
read it over my grave, and write on my tomb its 
promise of life eternal." 




BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

I shall not attempt to give any complete list of the books that I have 
quoted, or from which I have derived suggestions, as many of them have 
been forgotten. I shall, however, make it as complete as I am able to. 

The Bible. 
Book of Concord. 
Lange's Commentary. 

Canon of the New Testament Westcott 

Story of the Manuscripts Merrill 

Genuineness of the Gospel Norton 

Neely's History of the Parliament of Religion. 
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge. 

System of Biblical Psychology Delitzsch 

Ecumenical Mission Conference Report for 1900 

Spiritual Life Coe 

American Journal of Psychology. 

Power of Religion Murrey 

Religionen og Menneskeslaegtens Stormaend L. Dahle 

Gesta Christi Brace 

Theodicy Beldsoe 

Lectures to Young Men Beecher 

Lectures to Young Men Dublin Y. M. C. A. Series 

Marriage Ring Talmage 

Boston Monday Lectures For 1880 and i88i 

Pleasures of Life- Lubbock 

Self Help Smiles 

Winsome Womanhood Sangster 

Student's Manual Todd 

The Sabbath for Man Crafts 

The Sabbath Giliillan 

Bampton Lectures Hessey 

Encheiridion Epictetus 

Meditations Aurelius 

Jewish Talmud, 

Evils of the Cities Talmage 

Sin Talmage 

Mistakes of Ingersoll McClure 

Confidential Talks with Young Men Sperry 

Confidential Talks with Young Ladies Sperry 

(270) 



Bibliography. 271 

What a Young Boy Ought to Know Stall 

What a Young Man Ought to Know :... Stall 

What a Young Husband Ought to Know Stall 

What a Young Girl Ought to Know Mrs. Wood-Alen and Mrs. Drake 

What a Young Woman Ought to Know — Mrs. Wood-Alen and Mrs. Drake 

What a Youg Wife Ought to Know Mrs. Wood-Alen and Mrs. Drake 

Planetary and Stellar World Mitchell 

In Sickness and in Health Roosevelt 

History of Persia Tytler 

History of England Macaulay 

Epochs of Modern History Gardiner 

Life of Burns Carlyle 

Life of Napoleon Abbott 

Life of David Livingstone '. Montefiore 

Life of Peter Cooper Lester 

History of United States Ridpath 

Modern Fads and Fanaticism Riley 

Ancient Wisdom Besant 

Age of Reason Tom Paine 

Traette Maend Garborg 

Brand Ibsen 

Table Talks Luther 

Works of William Shakespeare. 
Works of Milton. 
Sayings of Josh Billings. 

Visions oi Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise Dante 

Essays Emerson 

Essays Bacon 

Works of S. Coleridge. 
Works of Tennyson. 
Works of Pope. 

Pearls from Many Seas McClure 

Gems of Poetry Rhodes 

Great Truths Lippincott & Co. 

Handbook of Illustration Punshon 

Historical Lights Little 

Gentleness. 

McGuffie's School Series. 
Chambers Encyclopaedia. 
Encyclopaedia Britanica. 
Newspapers, Periodicals, Etc. 



INDEX. 

t^ c^* f^ 

Page 

Foreword ----- 5 

L 

The Bible - . . - 9 

The Bible as Unbelievers Really see it - - 29 

The Bible as the Believers see it - - 57 

The Sunday Question - - - 79 

IL 

Some Economic Factors of a Young Man's Life HO 

The Young Man and Social Life - - J 35 

The Young Man and Religious Life - - J 67 

IIL 

The Young Lady .... J99 

The Young Lady and the Home - - 220 

The Education of the Young Lady - - 247 



(272) 



\\\K\ 9 



902 



ieeP¥B^l. TOCAT.IMV, 
JUN. 2 1902 



